Veteran Bollywood actor Om Puri has signed for a lead role in Mike Nichols' "Charlie Wilson's War" opposite Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts reports Production Weekly.

Aaron Sorkin adapted George Crile's book about the CIA's largest and most successful covert CIA operation, the arming of the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan. The covert ops were engineered by Charlie Wilson (Hanks), a charismatic, wheeler-dealer, liberal Texas congressman who teamed with a rogue CIA operative.

The two manipulated Congress, the CIA and a host of foreign governments in order to assist the Afghan rebels in their fight against the Soviets in the 1980s. Many of the men armed by the CIA went on to become the Taliban's enforcers and Osama bin Laden's protectors.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman will play the CIA agent. Amy Adams will play Wilson's assistant. Puri will play General Zia-Ul-Haq, the late President of Pakistan. Shooting begins in Morocco later this month and then moves to Los Angeles in December.