The HBO cable network is working on a TV drama about a jihadi recruiting program that is set in Minnesota.
The New York Times reports Oscar winner Kathrn Bigelow, the director of The Hurt Locker will be the executive producer on the series currently titled The Recruiters.
Canadian rapper and poet K’naan Warsame, who is originally from Somalia, will write the script and direct the show. The Hollywood Reporter says the show will “unveil what is considered a world that’s hidden in plain sight” and “draw open an iron curtain behind which viewers will see the highly impenetrable world of Jihadi recruitment.”
Warsame recently posted a casting call for a “young Somali man” on Twitter.
The producers held a casting call at the Brian Coyle Center in Minneapolis on Nov. 28, and are also planning open casting calls in San Diego, Toronto and Columbus, Ohio.
Toronto, your chance to audition! pic.twitter.com/1mwmVQtLn8
— K’naan Warsame (@KNAAN) December 11, 2015
This TV show comes as police have investigated a number of young Minnesota men, a large majority of them of from Somali who left to fight for al-Shabab in East Africa starting in late 2007, but more recently to join ISIS.
Federal prosecutors have charged 10 Minnesotta men with planning to join the terror group in Syria.
