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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