CIA created Osama board game up for sale

A snakes and ladders ‘terror’ board game featuring al-Qaeda top brass, including Osama bin Laden, and former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein that was created by CIA to deter children from getting influenced by such leaders has been put on sale.

The ‘snakes and ladders’ board game has top al-Qaeda leaders’ and Saddam’s picture at the head of snakes.

This prototype was covertly designed for the CIA by Donald Levine, the creator of the iconic G I Joe doll, in 2005 for an “influence operation”, intended to strategically distribute scary or perhaps comical depictions of Osama and Hussein to children, ideally to dissuade them from joining a terrorist group such as al-Qaeda. The project, intended for use in Arab countries, was discontinued after prototypes were developed.

<g data-gr-id="11">Board</g> game has blue cardboard playing surface with numbered grid and small photographs of Saddam, Osama and other members of al-Qaeda printed on it.