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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.

history

All Episodes

23:45

CC: Kahlil Sayegh – Palestinian Survival in the Face...

CONFLICTED ·

2025/04/02

This week for the Conflicted Community we begin a series of conversations about the conflict in Israel and Palestine, with Palestinians themselves, to shed some light on the Palestinian perspective of this most complex of conflicts. And this week it is the turn of Khalil Sayegh, a Palestinian Christian political analyst, who shares his personal journey from Gaza to Ramallah, to Washington D.C. In this episode, Khalil tells us about his opposition to Hamas, the impact of war on his life, and gives

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84:06

The Syrian Civil War Pt.4: Afrin Under Siege & Exile...

CONFLICTED ·

2025/03/26

Conflicted brings to an end our three part series with Ronnie Hamada, a Syrian Kurdish civilian, whose experience of the Civil War has been thrilling us over the past few episodes... Thomas and Ronnie open with the impact of the Battle of Aleppo on the Kurdish province of Afrin, highlighting the rise of jihadist groups and the challenges faced by the Kurdish community. Ronnie also shares his harrowing experiences living under siege in Afrin, describing dire conditions, economic lockdowns and food

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23:49

CC: Q&A – The Truth Behind the Violence in Syria

CONFLICTED ·

2025/03/19

Thomas and Aimen are back together for another Q&A! This week we answer your questions on the many and varied crises that seem to be engulfing the Middle East and the world in 2025…Thomas and Aimen begin by analysing the complex and tumultuous situation in Syria, exploring the recent resurgence of violence, the role of disinformation, and the internal conflicts among the Alawite community which have been sparking new fears of intense violence. They also discuss the new Syrian government's

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70:48

The Syrian Civil War Pt.3: The Arab Spring Hits Aleppo

CONFLICTED ·

2025/03/12

This week on Conflicted, Ronnie Hamada is back with Thomas to describe his experiences as a Kurdish civilian during the Syrian Civil War, as we continue our retrospective on that most complex of conflicts. And this week, after setting up some Kurdish history last time, Ronnie takes us through what it was like to live through the Arab Spring protests as a university student, where he saw his classmates attacked by Assad backed thugs, and as violence increased around him by the day. In a gripping

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24:34

Conflicted Community: Elisabeth Kendall – Politics,...

CONFLICTED ·

2025/03/05

This week for our Conflicted Community members, we return to Yemen for an interview with, Dr Elisabeth Kendall, an academic whose work has covered so many varied manifestations of the country’s culture, politics, and the conflict that has engulfed it for the past decade.Elisabeth is a professor of Arabic and Islamic studies at the University of Cambridge, where she is also the Mistress of Girton College. Her research explores how militant jihad groups use 'soft' culture (poetry, literature, song)

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70:15

The Syrian Civil War Pt.2 – The Kurds Rise Up

CONFLICTED ·

2025/02/26

This week on Conflicted, we begin in earnest our retrospective on the Syrian Civil War, where we will be inviting actual Syrians from a multitude of different perspectives, to tell us about their experiences of the war. After setting the scene with our old friend Wassim Nasr last time, over our upcoming episodes, we’ll be creating a kind of narrative history for you, our listeners, as we make sense of this most complex of conflicts from as many angles as we can. In this episode, Thomas invites on

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23:48

Conflicted Community: Dalia Ziada – Liberal Activism...

CONFLICTED ·

2025/02/19

This week for our Conflicted Community members, we have an interview with the Egyptian political activist Dalia Ziada, whose incredible personal story crosses so many of the major events in the modern middle east, from the Arab Spring, to October 7th.Dalia is an award-winning Egyptian writer and political analyst whose work focuses on governance, geopolitics, and defense policy. In Egypt, she co-founded the Liberal Democracy Institute in 2015, she is the Executive Director of the Center for Middle

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90:11

The Syrian Civil War Pt.1: Wassim Nasr Meets Al-Sharaa

CONFLICTED ·

2025/02/12

Conflicted takes on… the Syrian Civil War. In the wake of the fall of Assad, with the Syrian Civil War over, at least for the moment, Conflicted is bringing you a bit of a retrospective. In the coming episodes, we’ll be inviting Syrians and other people who experienced the conflict, from a multitude of different perspectives, onto the show to tell us about their experiences of the war. In doing so, we want to create a kind of narrative history as we make sense of this most complex of conflicts

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23:15

Conflicted Community: Q&A – What now for Israel and...

CONFLICTED ·

2025/02/05

The Conflicted Community is back for another Q&A for all of our dearest listeners. This week, in the first time Thomas and Aimen have got together since the Gaza ceasefire deal, they discuss its implications for the region and the world, with the help of listeners' questions.From the motivations of the parties involved in the ceasefire, to the question of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, to what Trump has planned for the region and some questions about the Palestinian Authority and the future

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73:45

Ethiopia Pt.3: The Shadow of the Derg

CONFLICTED ·

2025/01/29

Conflicted comes to the end of our Ethiopia series with an episode beginning at the fall of Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974, and charting the country's tumultuous course through the late 20th century. This was a time characterised by a brutality the country had not witnessed before, as the Communist military dictatorship, known as the Derg, wreaked havoc on the country.Ethiopia in the 70s and 80s was one dominated by horrifying episodes of mass death – from the Red Terror which engulfed the country

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47:22

Conflicted Community: Andrew Fox – The Gaza Ceasefire...

CONFLICTED ·

2025/01/22

Last week, a deal between Israel and Gaza was struck to bring back the Israeli hostages and to bring an end to the bloodshed which has engulfed Gaza over 15 months of fighting, since October 7th 2023. It’s a deal which has brought relief to many, not least the families of hostages and civilians in Gaza, but also questions from others who see Israel as having failed to fully dismantle Hamas and finish the war aims they began their assault on Gaza with. In this episode, recorded last week on February

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17:44

Conflicted Community: Q&A – What Will 2025 Hold for...

CONFLICTED ·

2025/01/08

Happy New Year to all of our dearest listeners!In our second episode of 2025, Thomas and Aimen are doing a Q&A session with all of your questions posted on Discord, and we’ve got some excellent ones this week. We’ll be doing a post-mortem of the zombie ideology of baathism now it has been seen off in Syria; we’ll look at why al-Julani is delaying elections for four years time; we’ll ask how HTS will be able to maintain territorial integrity in the future; and we’ll assess how Hamas still has any

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69:18

Conflicted Community: Tom Tugendhat – The Dangers of...

CONFLICTED ·

2025/01/01

To bring in the new year, we have a special Conflicted Community episode this week– an interview with none other than Tom Tugendhat, a Conservative British MP and ex Minister of State for Security. Tom is a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a veteran of both Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak’s Conservative cabinets. He remains a big figure in the party, having run unsuccessfully for party leader in 2024, and is one of the most outspoken of all British MPs when it comes to the UK's security

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80:33

Ethiopia Pt.2: Haile Selassie, King of Kings

CONFLICTED ·

2024/12/18

After a short emergency interlude into Syria, Conflicted Season 5 returns to our exploration of the fascinating land of Ethiopia. Moving now to the 20th century, where one man dominated the country: Emperor Haile Selassie, King of Kings.Haile Selassie is a name synonymous with a few things: Ethiopia’s age of regal power in the 20th century; being the only African monarch to withstand Western colonialism; and, of course, the religion in Jamaica which reveres him as a god, Rastafarianism. But Haile

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41:18

Conflicted Community: Aaron Zelin – Assad’s Fall and...

CONFLICTED ·

2024/12/11

ANOTHER EMERGENCY EPISODEThings are, as ever, moving at lightning speed in the Middle East, as last weekend on December 8th, Bashar al-Assad and his Syrian regime fell. After 13 years of civil war, and more than 50 years of his family’s rule, in an extraordinary turn of events rebel groups from the south and the north marched on Damascus. Assad has fled to Moscow; the future for Syria is unclear. It’s one of the most momentous events in modern Middle Eastern history, so this week Thomas invited

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91:59

The Syrian Civil War Reignites

CONFLICTED ·

2024/12/04

EMERGENCY EPISODEIn another hugely dramatic turn in the Middle East, the Syrian civil war has reignited. On November 27th 2024, Abu Mohammad al-Julani’s HTS reconquered huge swathes of the North West of the country, including the key city of Aleppo. Conflicted is here with an emergency explainer episode to try and decipher exactly what has gone on in Syria over the past week, and indeed the past decade, to give you the context you need to understand it. Thomas and Aimen are going back to a

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24:57

Conflicted Community: Q&A – What Does Trump Mean for...

CONFLICTED ·

2024/11/27

This week for the Conflicted Community, Thomas and Aimen are giving their take on, you guessed it, the US election and the return of Donald Trump to the White House.That’s right, dearest listeners, it’s Donald Trump part 2, and this time, who knows what’s in store for America, the Middle East and the world. After assessing how Trump got in and a look at his eccentric picks for top jobs in his administration, we take a look at what this all means for US foreign policy in the Middle East – will we

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76:38

Ethiopia Pt.1: The Cradle of Humanity

CONFLICTED ·

2024/11/20

Conflicted’s tour of Africa takes another turn, this time to the East, as we head to the horn of Africa to learn about that most ancient of lands… Ethiopia! Ethiopia is the cradle of humanity – the place where some of the oldest remains of homo sapiens have been found, and its history through antiquity is equally rich. In this episode Thomas and Aimen are going way back in time to tel us about great African civilizations like the Aksumite Kingdom, and all the fascinating stories that intersect with

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62:22

La Françafrique Pt.2: Enter the Russians

CONFLICTED ·

2024/11/06

Conflicted is back, continuing our trip across La Françafrique this week, with a survey of the last 10 years in Francophone West Africa, and yes, you guessed it: it’s insurgencies, jihadi movements and coups galore! Thomas and Aimen open up with a discussion of the anti-jihadist activities being carried out by the French in the Sahel since 2013, including the infamous operations Serval and Barkhane. But as jihadi movements grew, the French found themselves in hot water, which got even hotter as a

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23:37

Conflicted Community: Jack Margolin Interview – How...

CONFLICTED ·

2024/10/30

On this week’s Conflicted Community episode, we invite the researcher and author Jack Margolin onto the show, to talk about his recently published book, The Wagner Group: Inside Russia’s Mercenary Army.Jack is an independent researcher and expert on modern mercenaries, focussing on conflict finance, guns and crime in data, who previously worked with the The Center for Advanced Defense Studies. Continuing our Africa focus this season, Jack and Thomas discuss how Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of

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