Episodes

  • Conflicted Community: Jack Margolin Interview – How did the Wagner Group end up in Africa?

    Conflicted Community: Jack Margolin Interview – How did the Wagner Group end up in Africa?
    Oct 30 2024
    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 this Private Military Company, went from creating troll farms in St. Petersburg to sending troops to Syria and then Africa, with malign interests every step of the way. Jack explains how the ‘adhocracy’ Wagner operate in the region sees them exploit local resources for monetary gain, while also bolstering Russian interests in the region by doing the jobs that nation states and more cautious mercenary groups were not able to do. But after Prigozhin’s downfall last year, are the Wagner Group still around? And will they continue to offer despotic African governments something the West cannot? To listen to the full episode, you’ll need to subscribe to the Conflicted Community. And don’t forget, subscribers can also join our Conflicted Community chatroom, where you can interact with fellow dearest listeners, discuss episodes past and future, get exclusive messages from Thomas and Aimen, ask future Q&A questions and so much more. All the information you need to sign up is on this link: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/ Find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MHconflicted And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    24 mins
  • La Françafrique Pt.1: France’s Shadow Empire

    La Françafrique Pt.1: France’s Shadow Empire
    Oct 23 2024
    Bonjour tout le monde! In this week’s Conflicted, Thomas and Aimen are going continental as they continue their survey of Africa, with the first of a two part series on French West Africa, aka La Françafrique! France’s West African colonial possessions are relatively unknown in the English speaking world, but from Chad to Senegal, their histories are fascinating, and remind us of the disturbing continued tentacles of colonialism on the continent… In this first episode, Thomas and Aimen take us back to the precursors to colonial West Africa, from the Ghana Empire of antiquity, to the resplendent reign of Mansa Musa and his Malian empire renowned as the richest in the world… They then look to the arrival of the French and the ‘civilising mission’, before examining how France have continued to subjugate and exploit many West African countries through a neo-imperial control of their monetary policies. New Conflicted Season 5 episodes will be coming every two weeks, but if you want to have your Conflicted fix every single week, then you’ll have to join our Conflicted Community. Subscribers will get bonus episodes every other week, and can also join our Conflicted Community chatroom, where you can interact with fellow dearest listeners, discuss episodes past and future, get exclusive messages from Thomas and Aimen, ask future Q&A questions and so much more. All the information you need to sign up to the Conflicted Community is on this link: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/ Find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MHconflicted And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 6 mins
  • Conflicted Community: Simon Sebag Montefiore Interview – a Muslim, a Christian and a Jew discuss Jerusalem

    Conflicted Community: Simon Sebag Montefiore Interview – a Muslim, a Christian and a Jew discuss Jerusalem
    Oct 9 2024
    This week we’re thrilled to bring our Conflicted Community an interview with a guest who we all at Conflicted are great fans of – British historian Simon Sebag Montefiore! Simon is an award winning historian of bestsellers including Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar, Young Stalin, The Romanovs and his most recent work, The World: A Family History. But today we are here to talk with him about the newly updated version of his 2011 book, Jerusalem: The Biography. At the one year anniversary of October 7th, there has never been a better time to discuss the pivotal place of the city of Jerusalem in the story of Israel, Palestine and the current conflict. Thomas, Aimen and Simon discuss the contested nature of the city’s history from antiquity to the modern day – and where the city lives in the imaginarium of each of their religious faiths – Islam, Christianity and Judaism. To listen to more episodes like this one, you’ll need to subscribe to the Conflicted Community. And don’t forget, subscribers can also join our Conflicted Community chatroom, where you can interact with fellow dearest listeners, discuss episodes past and future, get exclusive messages from Thomas and Aimen, ask future Q&A questions and so much more. All the information you need to sign up is on this link: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/ Go to https://surfshark.com/CONFLICTEDPOD and enter the code CONFLICTEDPOD for an extra four months free. Find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MHconflicted And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    57 mins
  • Conflicted Community: Q&A – Hassan Nasrallah Assassinated and the Middle East on the Brink

    Conflicted Community: Q&A – Hassan Nasrallah Assassinated and the Middle East on the Brink
    Oct 2 2024
    Thomas and Aimen are back with a vital Q&A as the Middle East enters its most dangerous and precarious moment in recent memory. Israel’s 12 day operation, beginning with an extraordinary operation that blew up thousands of Hezbollah pagers across Lebanon, then escalated this week with the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in a huge strike on Hezbollah’s headquarters in Southern Lebanon. The head of the Hezbollah snake has been cut off, and the repercussions are already being felt. This week we answer your questions on what this watershed moment means for Lebanon, the wider Middle East and indeed the world, as Israel continues its operations. Will Iran and its nuclear programme be next in Israel’s crosshairs? And what next for the Lebanese state? To listen to the full episode, you’ll need to subscribe to the Conflicted Community. And don’t forget, subscribers can also join our Conflicted Community chatroom, where you can interact with fellow dearest listeners, discuss episodes past and future, get exclusive messages from Thomas and Aimen, ask future Q&A questions and so much more. All the information you need to sign up is on this link: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/ Find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MHconflicted And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    39 mins
  • Sudan Pt.4: Omar Al-Bashir Loses Grip & Chaos Reigns

    Sudan Pt.4: Omar Al-Bashir Loses Grip & Chaos Reigns
    Sep 18 2024
    Thomas and Aimen are back to bring you the final episode in our four part survey of the history and modern conflict in Sudan. In this episode, the pair first take us through the battles between Hasan Al-Turabi and Omar Al-Bashir in the 1990s, with Aimen revealing some fascinating anecdotes about the way Sudan incubated worldwide terror, including Osama Bin Laden, prior to 9/11. And next, we hear about the roots of the conflict raging in Sudan today, from the development of an Arab Spring style revolution in Khartoum, to the brutal response to it, the fall of Bashir, numerous coups and now the battles between the RSF and SAF. And what does the future hold for Sudan? Is peace on the horizon? And how could it be maintained? Here is the only place to find out. New Conflicted Season 5 episodes will be coming every two weeks, but if you want to have your Conflicted fix every single week, then you’ll have to join our Conflicted Community. Subscribers will get bonus episodes every other week, and can also join our Conflicted Community chatroom, where you can interact with fellow dearest listeners, discuss episodes past and future, get exclusive messages from Thomas and Aimen, ask future Q&A questions and so much more. All the information you need to sign up to the Conflicted Community is on this link: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/ Surfshark VPN: Go to https://surfshark.com/CONFLICTEDPOD and enter the code CONFLICTEDPOD for an extra four months free. Find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MHconflicted And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 19 mins
  • Conflicted Revisited… Gaddafi: The Arab Madman Cometh

    Conflicted Revisited… Gaddafi: The Arab Madman Cometh
    Sep 11 2024
    Attention dear listeners – there’s been a small change in scheduling as Aimen has unfortunately been incapacitated and unable to record our fourth episode on Sudan. But don’t fret – Aimen is on the mend and will be back bringing us all more incredible insight and anecdotes about the Middle East very soon… So this week, we’re returning to an episode from Season 3 about our old friend, Colonel Gaddafi of Libya. If you’ve been listening closely to this season, you’ll remember that Gadaffi has been intimately involved in the 20th century story of Sudan, turning up to stir the pot and influence events there at every opportunity. So while you wait for our final episode on Sudan, we thought we’d bring you this episode as a brilliant refresher on another African country with vital links to Sudan, exploring how Gaddafi attempted to create his own revolutionary African Empire and the consequences across the region. New Conflicted Season 5 episodes will be coming every two weeks, but if you want to have your Conflicted fix every single week, then you’ll have to join our Conflicted Community. Subscribers will get bonus episodes every other week, and can also join our Conflicted Community chatroom, where you can interact with fellow dearest listeners, discuss episodes past and future, get exclusive messages from Thomas and Aimen, ask future Q&A questions and so much more. All the information you need to sign up to the Conflicted Community is on this link: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/ Find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MHconflicted And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 32 mins
  • Conflicted Community: Q&A – Sudan Updates, Gaza Peace Talks and Hezbollah Kill Some Chickens…

    Conflicted Community: Q&A – Sudan Updates, Gaza Peace Talks and Hezbollah Kill Some Chickens…
    Sep 4 2024
    This week for our Conflicted Community, we answer your listener questions! This week, it’s a grab bag of topics ranging from recent events like the thwarted Hezbollah attacks in northern Israel and the IS attack in Germany. Thomas and Aimen also speak about our recent series on Sudan, giving some updates on what is going on on the ground there, ahead for our final episode in the mini series next week. All this, plus thoughts about Hizb ut-Tahrir, anti-semitism and so much more… To listen to the full episode, you’ll need to subscribe to the Conflicted Community. And don’t forget, subscribers can also join our Conflicted Community chatroom, where you can interact with fellow dearest listeners, discuss episodes past and future, get exclusive messages from Thomas and Aimen, ask future Q&A questions and so much more. All the information you need to sign up is on this link: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/ Find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MHconflicted And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    25 mins
  • Sudan Pt.3: Civil War & Genocide

    Sudan Pt.3: Civil War & Genocide
    Aug 28 2024
    This week on Conflicted, Thomas and Aimen continue their exploration into the history of Sudan, focusing on two areas of the country which we’ve left off so far – but which have been hugely influential to the country’s story: Darfur and South Sudan. Both these areas were brutalised during Sudan’s 20th century history, and for remarkably different reasons. But it all comes back to the hegemony of Sudan’s ruling Three Arab Tribes – the tribes who have fixed the country’s course to conflict and caused the separatism which has long abounded in the country. In this third part of our Sudan mini-series, Thomas and Aimen take us through how these two regions faired as they tried to cut their own path against the ruling Arab elite, and the destruction they were met with, from forced Islamisation in the South, to the horrific genocide perpetrated in Darfur in the early 2000s. These events proved the brutal nature of the Sudanese ruling elite, and can tell us a huge amount about the conflict going on there today. New Conflicted Season 5 episodes will be coming every two weeks, but if you want to have your Conflicted fix every single week, then you’ll have to join our Conflicted Community. Subscribers will get bonus episodes every other week, and can also join our Conflicted Community chatroom, where you can interact with fellow dearest listeners, discuss episodes past and future, get exclusive messages from Thomas and Aimen, ask future Q&A questions and so much more. All the information you need to sign up to the Conflicted Community is on this link: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/ Find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MHconflicted And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 10 mins