2025 Year in Review

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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