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.
Episodes
January 27, 2026 • 54 mins
As jihadist violence in Mali escalates, Thomas and Aimen trace the history and present-day power of JNIM (‘Support Group for Islam and Muslims’), an Al Qaeda affiliate that has been laying siege to the capital Bamako. Will Mali’s secular state survive? Or is a jihadist takeover of the whole country now inevitable?
**Including BONUS MATERIAL for subscribers to the Conflicted Community!**
Thomas and Aimen discuss:
The evolution...
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January 22, 2026 • 55 mins
In this episode, Aaron Zelin returns to Conflicted to unpack the extraordinary collapse of the Syrian Democratic Forces’ position in northeast Syria over the past week — and what the fallout could mean for Syria’s fragile post-Assad order.
Aaron explains:
Why the March 2025 framework agreement ultimately failed
Why Sunni Arab tribes abandoned the SDF — and how Damascus prepared the ground
How and why fighting erupted in ...
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January 20, 2026 • 54 mins
On the first anniversary of the dismantling of USAID, the United States Agency for International Development, Thomas and Aimen trace the history of the organisation and ask whether USAID’s collapse represents a failure of liberal internationalism itself, or simply the end of one particular way of organizing American power in the world.
They discuss:
Trump’s 2025 executive order and the effective end of USAID
USAID, anti-com...
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January 15, 2026 • 85 mins
In this episode, Yemeni researcher and political analyst Baraa Shiban (a great friend of the show) tells the thrilling behind-the-scenes story of how different visions for the future of Yemen led long-simmering tensions between the UAE and Saudi Arabia to explode into the open.
For further reference, here’s a helpful map of Yemen showing current areas of control: https://www.aa.com.tr/en/info/infographic/49654
Baraa explains:
...
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January 13, 2026 • 52 mins
A rare public rupture has emerged between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Triggered by a dramatic escalation over Yemen in late December 2025, the dispute has exposed deeper ideological and strategic differences between the two Gulf powers.
In this episode, Thomas and Aimen step back from the battlefield to examine the historical roots of Saudi–Emirati rivalry and why Yemen became the arena where these differences final...
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January 8, 2026 • 59 mins
Islam is often treated as a civilisation apart — self-contained, resistant to modernity, and fundamentally at odds with the West. In this episode, Thomas speaks to Oxford professor James McDougall about why that framing is misleading, and how Islamic history is inseparable from the making of the modern world itself.
Drawing on his new book Worlds of Islam: A Global History, McDougall explains:
Why Islamic and Western histories...
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January 6, 2026 • 56 mins
As mass protests sweep Iran and President Trump declares the U.S. is ‘locked and loaded’, Thomas and Aimen revisit the event that shaped U.S.–Iran relations for the next half-century: the Iran Hostage Crisis. Then, in real time, the conversation veers into a fast-moving geopolitical shock: Venezuela, Iran’s global networks, and what a new era of American ‘muscle’ might actually look like.
They discuss:
Iran’s 2026 protest wave...
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January 1, 2026 • 79 mins
Amid controversy surrounding Zohran Mamdani’s rise to power in New York City, Hussein Mansour tells Thomas all about the history of Third Worldism — where it comes from, what it originally meant, and why the term has resurfaced.
Thomas and Hussein discuss:
Zohran Mamdani as a symbol, not a cause, of a broader elite transformation
The Third Estate, the French Revolution, and the revolutionary inheritance of modern radical po...
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December 30, 2025 • 52 mins
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 ...
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December 25, 2025 • 82 mins
The war in Ukraine is back in the headlines as a peace agreement appears increasingly probably — though with major concessions to Russia. So as a Christmas present to our listeners, we’ve brought this episode from August out from behind the paywall.
In it, Thomas speaks with his old university friend Jakub — a former Slovak Army officer who volunteered to fight in Ukraine — about the lived reality of modern warfare, from trench fi...
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December 23, 2025 • 49 mins
What is ‘the Christmas story’ really? And how does it change when you tell it from within a different religious tradition? In Conflicted’s first-ever Christmas Special, Thomas and Aimen retell the Nativity as it appears in the Gospels and in the Qur’an.
They discuss:
Who were the Magi? Zoroastrian priests or Nabataean nomads?
How the Nativity story differs between the Bible and the Qur’an
A controversial theory about ho...
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December 18, 2025 • 60 mins
In this Conflicted Conversation, Thomas speaks with global finance and security analyst Giri Rajendran about the Trump Administration’s newly published National Security Strategy — what it signals, what it omits, and what it suggests about America’s role in a multipolar world.
Thomas and Giri discuss:
How this report differs from previous US National Security Strategies
The end of the old rules-based order of liberal intern...
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December 16, 2025 • 52 mins
What does the future hold for the Middle East — and the world — in 2026?
In this special episode of Conflicted, Thomas instructs Aimen to peer into his crystal ball and offer his forecasts for the year to come.
In this episode, Aimen and Thomas discuss:
How professional geopolitical analysts make forecasts
The impossibility of foreseeing Black Swan events
Why an end to the war in Ukraine could reshape Middle Eastern geo...
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December 11, 2025 • 63 mins
In this Conflicted Conversation, Thomas speaks with Lorenzo Vidino, Director of the Programme on Extremism at The George Washington University.
What happens when an ideological movement is neither a terrorist organisation nor an ordinary religious group — but something in between? One of the world’s leading experts on the Muslim Brotherhood explains…
The early history of Islam in America
The first Brotherhood-linked student...
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December 9, 2025 • 55 mins
The Middle East is shifting again, and fast. In this wide-ranging overview, Aimen and Thomas break down the hidden forces reshaping the geopolitical chessboard as 2025 draws to a close.
In this episode, Aimen and Thomas uncover:
The power of Saudi Arabia’s discovery of vast rare-earth reserves
The U.S.–Saudi grand bargain
Why the F-35 sale to Saudi Arabia rattled Israel and what it means for the future of the Abraham Acc...
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December 4, 2025 • 51 mins
In this Conflicted Conversation, Thomas speaks with Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat about the Muslim Brotherhood.
What happens when a Western democracy encounters an ideological movement it no longer has the language — or the institutions — to understand?
The former Security Minister and long-time observer of the Middle East explains what the Brotherhood is, how it operates, and why the British state is struggling to deal with it.
...
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December 2, 2025 • 52 mins
Conflicted is back. Aimen and Thomas return with a renewed mission and a bold vision for the future of the show. In this special relaunch episode, they look back at the journey so far, celebrate the global community that’s grown around Conflicted, and reveal what’s coming next in an ever-more turbulent world.
In this episode, Aimen and Thomas:
Offer a sweeping recap of Conflicted’s story arcs, themes, and analyses
Reveal wh...
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November 26, 2025 • 90 mins
This week on Conflicted, we’re unlocking another episode we first released for members of the Conflicted Community.
In this interview from last January, I talk with Martin Plaut, a distinguished journalist who has reported on conflicts across Africa for decades, and whose book Understanding Ethiopia’s Tigray War was an essential resource for us in preparing our series on Ethiopia. We discuss:
Ethiopia’s recent Tigray War ...
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November 20, 2025 • 74 mins
This week on Conflicted, Thomas is joined by T.V. Paul, Distinguished James McGill Professor in the Department of Political Science at McGill University.
Prof. Paul is one of the world’s leading thinkers in international relations and author of Restraining Great Powers: Soft Balancing from Empires to the Global Era and The Unfinished Quest: India’s Search for Major Power Status from Nehru to Modi.
In this wide-ranging convers...
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November 12, 2025 • 76 mins
This week on Conflicted, we’re unlocking for everyone an episode we first released a year ago for members of the Conflicted Community — an interview with Hussam Mahjoub, a Sudanese journalist, political activist, and founder of the independent TV channel Sudan Bukra, which has become a vital source of truth amid the chaos of war.
When it was recorded, Sudan was already sliding into catastrophe. But in the months since, the count...
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