The Somali Project

For eighteen months, an Emmy- and Peabody-winning film team risked life and limb to document one of the most audacious (and troubled) military missions ever imagined: a ground-up anti-piracy force in Somalia, the most lawless nation on Earth. From hijacked oil tankers to pirate prisons, a murder, and the attempted killing of one of the cameramen, almost everything is captured on tape. The Somali Project begins with pirates capturing the merchant vessel Royal Grace and holding its crew for ransom. As the Grace's hostages-and those from dozens of other ships-languish under unspeakable conditions, a Persian Gulf state quietly bankrolls a paramilitary force to raid pirate havens and free the captives. That controversial force faces mutiny and murder and runs afoul of the U.N. before eventually coming face-to-face with the elusive pirates in an extraordinary battle captured on film.