An ex-Al Qaeda jihadi turned MI6 spy and a former monk turned filmmaker, have been embedded at the heart of conflicts in the Middle East. Together Aimen Dean and Thomas Small unpack the realities of war, fundamentalism and their global implications through first-hand experience.
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An ex-Al Qaeda jihadi turned MI6 spy and a former monk turned filmmaker, have been embedded at the heart of conflicts in the Middle East. Together Aimen Dean and Thomas Small unpack the realities of war, fundamentalism and their global implications through first-hand experience.
As 2025 draws to a close, Thomas and Aimen take an unconventional tour of the Islamic world — looking beyond the usual headlines to the under-the-radar shifts that happened in 2025, with the potential to shape 2026 and beyond.
They discuss:
Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger forming the Alliance of Sahel States and what a new Sahel bloc might mean
The geopolitical ‘cluster fuck’ of the Sudanese civil war
The European Union’s re-entry into Central Asia
The Gabala Summit and the rising Turkic axis
How Bangladesh is diversifying away from India
Southern Thailand’s Malay-Muslim insurgency and why it’s so rarely discussed
In Iraq, Kata’ib Hezbollah and the breakdown of state sovereignty
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Conflicted is a Message Heard production.
Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.
Produced by Thomas Small and edited by Lizzy Andrews.
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CONFLICTED
An ex-Al Qaeda jihadi turned MI6 spy and a former monk turned filmmaker, have been embedded at the heart of conflicts in the Middle East. Together Aimen Dean and Thomas Small unpack the realities of war, fundamentalism and their global implications through first-hand experience.
