Conflicted S4 E1: Where Have All The Terrorists Gone?

Speakers: Thomas Small & Aimen Dean

Thomas: Hello, dear listener, Thomas Small here to welcome you back to season four of Conflicted. A new and improved season of Conflicted, to be precise, because this season we're doing something a little different.

Like always, we're going to be analysing and discussing anything and everything to do with the Muslim world, but now we'll be coming to you every week. Yep. Weekly episodes of Conflicted for the foreseeable covering everything, our bread and butter, counterterrorism, of course.

But also, deep dives into Islamic scholars from the eighth century. What Erdoğan's victory in the Turkish elections means for the future of the region. How it is that the sheikhs of the Arabian Peninsula have come to play such a crucial role in world affairs and much, much more.

We'll even be speaking to some outside experts as well. And of course, I will still be joined by my co-host extraordinaire, Aimen Dean. Aimen, welcome. How are you, man? It's been a long time.

Aimen: Well, I can tell you, Thomas, as usual, I'm still alive despite the persistent attempts by my two little monsters to shorten my lifespan. But I'm still resisting.

Thomas: Well, he's still alive, dear listener, and we're very glad to hear it, Aimen. Your two little monsters at home might be trying to kill you, but other people out there might still be trying to kill you as well, which is the topic of today's show.

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Aimen, is Islamic terror still a thing in 2023? What are your old friends up to? Let's get right into it.

Now Aimen, do you remember where we were when we recorded the first episode of Conflicted all those years ago? I mean, it felt like a different time, didn't it? Pre-COVID, pre-Ukraine and Russia, of course.

It felt back then that Islamic terrorism was very much still the plat du jour, the zeitgeist. I mean, back then it was on the front pages. Where is it today? It doesn't really seem to be as prevalent.

Aimen: Thomas, terrorism is like the moon. It goes through the cycles. When you see the full moon up there in the sky, what is happening? You have the gravity of the moon pulling at the seas, affecting the tides, affecting the mood of people. This is why you have lunatics during the full moon. That's why they call it Luna from lunatics.

But the reality is that by the end of the month, the moon fades away. And this is the cycle. The reality is that political violence inspired by Islamic ideology, or shall I say Islamic fundamentalist ideology is cyclical, and it's affected by the different geopolitical realities in the region.

So, there has to be a conflict, a conflict that evoke emotions like what happened with Iraq in the 2000s, what happened with Syria in the 2010s, what happened with Afghanistan in the 1980s.

So, there has to be that centre of gravity. At the moment (thank God for that), that centre of gravity is absent. But for how long?

Thomas: So, you're talking really about the cycle of terror. Just like the moon and its phases, terrorism goes through cycles. And you think, what, we're in a new moon phase of terrorism? Is it really as quiet as it seems?

Aimen: Well, it is quiet, but it doesn't mean that there is nothing beneath the surface. At the moment, I can tell you that when I look at the landscape of terrorism and of extremist violent groups that are at the moment in what I call a state of hibernation, and by that, I mean the Sunni Islamist fundamentalist groups.

These violent extremist groups at the moment are going through a period of either hibernation or a period of self-discovery, trying to know who they are, where do they want to go, but that is on the side of the Sunni fundamentalist extremism.

Thomas: Yeah, and it's good that you mentioned the Sunnis because of course, there are Shia extremists as well. Muslim extremism is often associated with Sunni Islam in the popular imagination. But there are Shia out there too, who get up to no good.

Aimen: Absolutely.

Thomas: And in this new and improved version of Conflicted, we're going to be sticking with this topic of radicalization, what creates the basis of terror for the next few weeks.

So, we've got a few episodes where we're going to be exploring these issues. And today, in this episode, what I really want to know is, given that we've just established that terror doesn't ever really go away, it just sometimes goes into, as you say, hibernation, where are the real centres of instability in the Muslim world right now? So, where could the next hotspot for Islamic extremism be?

Aimen: For me, I think, to be honest, I am looking at what's happening in Sudan with trepidation. I mean, in all honesty, when I woke up one day in Ramadan just recently, and I see the sight of MiG-29 fighter jets bombing neighbourhoods in the middle of Ramadan, while people are fasting, and I'm thinking, what the heck?

As my daughter like to say, always. What is happening for God's sake? This is Ramadan, Muslims are killing Muslims in the middle of Ramadan.

And I was astonished by the fact that this is a fight between two equally powerful forces in Sudan, the Sudanese Official Army, and the, you can call it the pseudo army, the shadow army, the Rapid Response Force, or the RSF.

Thomas: I'm going to stop you there, Aimen. Sudan is fascinating. I was also shocked to suddenly see Sudan up in flames. It wasn't really on my radar. But we've got a whole episode on Sudan down the line, so I don't want us to give the game away too soon.

So, Sudan is obviously a hotspot. What else? So, we're talking like Syria, our old friend, Syria. It's always a centre of instability, isn't it?

Aimen: Well, of course it is a centre of instability because the fundamentals for peace are still absent in Syria. Yes, Assad prevailed with the help of Russia's Air Force in the regions where he controls a territory that is 70% of Syria at the moment.

However, about 5% of Syria is still in the hands of the Jihadists led by Al-Nusra Front, which now calls itself Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham or HTS.

And also, you have about 20% held by the pro-American Kurdish forces, the Syrian Democratic Forces or the SDF.

So, at the moment, the fundamentals for peace are not there because Assad is not yet proposing a reasonable solution for the question of what to do with Northwest Syria held by the Jihadists and what to do with the millions of refugees who are abroad, and they want to come back, and he is not exactly very enthusiastic about welcoming them back.

Thomas: Yeah, we've got to do another episode on Syria as well. I mean, those amazing scenes we saw last month of the Arab League, all the big Arab leaders, reinviting Bashar al-Assad back into the fold, hugging him, kissing him, there he was. It was pretty amazing to think how the wheel turns in the Middle East and suddenly The Great Satan is back in the inner sanctum.

But yes, as you say, those images belie the lack of peace on the ground. But what about its neighbour Lebanon? So, Lebanon has been going through the ringer. I mean, we're talking currency collapse, financial collapse, total political chaos, sectarian strife, and violence as ever. Is Lebanon a worrying point for you?

Aimen: It is a worrying point. Lebanon is a country that is always on the brink. If I want to use a metaphor here, Thomas, I would say imagine your nice, lovely friend who's always partying, carefree, but this guy is holding a bottle of whiskey and dancing on the edge of the rooftop of an 80-story building, wild drunk, that is Lebanon.

You always pray that, please just come down from the brink, come down from this rooftop. This is Lebanon, unfortunately.

Thomas: And of course, the thing about Lebanon, as we covered in the last season of Conflicted, it's just this incredible patchwork of sects. The sectarian element of the violence of the Middle East is concentrated in Lebanon.

So, like in the north around Tripoli, in those environs, you have the Sunni Jihadists, if you like, the Sunni focus of radicalism is there. But there are Shia groups operating in Lebanon. Most notoriously Hezbollah, but also others. What's your read on that sectarian divide there?

Aimen: The sectarian divide in Lebanon is extremely deep, and it is based on the fact that Hezbollah is now a de facto state within a state. It has its own banking system. It has its own agricultural system. It has its own financial system, telecommunication system, and welfare system.

So basically, the people there feel that Hezbollah is the cause of the sanctions. Hezbollah is the cause of the fact that the GCC or the Gulf countries are not trading with Lebanon, which cause the poverty there.

Thomas: And of course, Lebanese Hezbollah has a significant presence in Syria now too. It's definitely spread. This must rub up against Israel in a pretty explosive way. Israel's not happy about the situation. What's the sort of situation there between Hezbollah and Israel at the moment?

Aimen: For Israel, they see Hezbollah as an existential threat. For them, they see that Hezbollah possessed 200,000 rockets pointing at Israel, not to mention the thousands of drones and cruise missiles that Hezbollah was stocking on since 2006 from Iran.

And they fear that in a conflict between them and Hezbollah, that Hezbollah will use the scorched-earth policy of sending thousands of missiles and drones per day to overwhelm the Iron Dome defence for Israel.

Thomas: I was going to ask the Iron Dome, when we hear about the Iron Dome defence system, surely that can protect Israel from these 200,000 rockets, or is 200,000 rockets a little bit more than even the Israelis can manage?

Aimen: Even 20,000 rockets will overwhelm the Iron Dome defence system of Israel. And this is why the Israelis in any war between them and Hezbollah, will resort to returning Lebanon to the Stone Age with bombing-

Thomas: Oh God.

Aimen: The living daylight out of the country, and especially out of Hezbollah's infrastructure to prevent them from launching such attacks on Israel.

But everyone knows that if Israel were to go into an open conflict with Iran, then Hezbollah is Iran's arm through which they can deliver a hurtful and painful punch at Israel and Israel's internal security.

Thomas: This raises the question of the nuclear situation in the Middle East. Israel obviously has lots of nuclear weapons, as we know. Iran always seems to be just on the brink of declaring nuclear capability themselves.

Yeah. So, if Israel wanted to sort out the Iran situation there, Hezbollah's there with a kind of spear in its back saying, “You move, we move.”

Aimen: It's a Mexican standoff. This is what it is. It's a Mexican standoff. And I mean, literally Iran is holding a gun to Israel's head, pointing at it from its northern flank, which is the Lebanese southern border with Israel. And that is why the Israelis are always hesitant when it comes to the question of how to deal with Iran's nuclear capabilities, which could at any given moment emerge.

Thomas: We've got a whole episode on the nuclear Middle East coming up. So, let's move on. But let's stick with the Shia militancy.

Now, you were saying something interesting to me, Aimen, that Shia militancy these days (though of course it has a military, paramilitary aspect), has another aspect that maybe a lot of people aren't aware of, a pharmaceutical aspect.

Aimen: Pharmaceutical, you kidding me? I wish we could call it pharmaceutical. It's more like pharma poisoning. I mean, goodness.

You know what? Over the past, I would say seven, eight years, the Assad regime, in conjunction with Hezbollah in Syria as well as in Lebanon, they built up a network of factories. Something between 12 and 15 factories transcending the border between Lebanon. In Lebanon, it is in Al-Biqā Valley and in Syria, it is in places like Al Zabadani and the Bloudan and As Suwayda and Daraa.

And these places contain factories that manufacture the most potent and toxic pills known in the narcotics industry. They are called the Captagon. They are a sort of an amphetamine derivative, which is the worst kind of derivative with the worst possible ingredients that could absolutely wreak havoc on the mind of the consumer, of the people who become addicted.

And my God, Thomas, they produce on annual basis an average of 4 billion pills per year. It's an industry worth between 30 and 40 billion U.S. dollars every year for the parties involved.

Who are these parties? Assad and his family, especially his brother, Maher al-Assad, the commander of the fourth division of the Syrian Republican Guard, Hezbollah, and especially Zaiter family, part of the Hezbollah Narcotics Empire, as well as the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC.

Thomas: And what's the market for these drugs? Where are the drugs having the most sort of disastrous impact?

Aimen: You go where the money is, but also you go where your enemy reside. So, of course it is Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, Oman, and to some extent Egypt. And we started to see them even being exported to other markets like Turkey, Greece, and Italy.

Thomas: Well anecdotally, I can back this up because I was recently talking to a number of psychotherapists and psychiatrists in Saudi Arabia, and they were opening up to me about just how acute the kingdom's growing drug crisis is.

There's a lot of psychotic episodes happening, A lot of people whose minds have been really broken by addiction to these sorts of drugs.

Now, I wasn't as aware when I was having these conversations that to some extent, this problem is traceable back to Syria, to Hezbollah and to the Shia sort of paramilitary nexus in the Middle East.

Aimen: Absolutely, Thomas, this is nothing short of weaponized narcotics warfare directed at the GCC by Iran and its proxies in order to weaken the internal societal cohesion of their enemies. And I'm talking about the GCC, and while at the same time, making tons of money out of the misery of tens of thousands of Saudi, Kuwaiti and Emirati families who are suffering because of the ill effects of these toxic diabolical pills.

Thomas: It's a fascinating perspective. We'll have to do an episode on that too, I think.

Aimen: Absolutely.

Thomas: But for now, obviously looking across the whole Middle East, Iraq is always a problem point. Yemen, obviously a problem point. We're definitely doing an episode, more than one on Yemen. Libya, Afghanistan, our old best friend.

But now I'd like to shift focus to a country that I think is really for you, Aimen, particularly worrying. And that's Pakistan. What's going on there and why should we all fear what might come out of Pakistan?

Aimen: Goodness, Thomas, what is not to worry about in Pakistan? I think this is the question we should be asking ourselves.

We are talking about a nation of 230 million humans who lack a lot of the basic necessities of life, clean water, constant energy, reliable infrastructure. All of these are becoming more and more absent.

The infrastructure in Pakistan is in shambles. The economy itself is in shambles, the currency is sinking. The heavy external debt of Pakistan is unserviceable anymore, and the Pakistani economy is not an export economy anymore because of the lack of reliable power to produce enough goods in order to export. As well as the agricultural sector is absolutely on its knees because of the floods that devastated the country last year.

All of these come together with the perfect storm of the Ukraine war that has increased the prices of commodities, whether it is commodities for energy or the food commodities, as well as the fact that it comes after two devastating years of COVID and the lockdowns.

So, Pakistan is running out of luck. If luck is currency, basically Pakistan now is bankrupt of this currency.

Thomas: Yeah. Obviously, Pakistan's always been there in the background almost as this possible centre of instability. Everyone's always waiting for Pakistan to crack up. But you're saying really, there's real reason to be worried this time. This isn't just the same old instable Pakistan. These are tougher times.

Aimen: Indeed, these are tougher times. And I will tell you why. I mean, there is a joke where people always used to say, “What keeps India together?” Because India is a patchwork of many ethnicities and different states that have different languages and cultures.

But what keeps India together, they say what keeps India together is cricket and the English language. That's what keeps India together.

So, I'll remind you what keeps Pakistan together is cricket and India being there as a ever present threat to Pakistan's territorial integrity. And of course, because India is the big bogeyman as far as Pakistan is concerned. And this is the propaganda that the army and other Islamist groups fed the Pakistani people throughout the 70 years existence of Pakistan.

So, what keeps Pakistan together really is the army. The army as an institution, but also the army as the guarantor of the stability.

But in order to keep stability in the country, you need to have a strong currency, but also you have to have some functioning economy. But stability without a functioning economy is really difficult to attain.

Thomas: What about Imran Khan? What about his role? I mean, you hear about him in the West a lot. He's been sort of under house arrest, or he's actually been arrested. He still seems to have millions and millions of supporters. The army clearly have turned against him. The Islamists, do they tend to support him? It's kind of confusing.

Aimen: Oh, Thomas, don't bother me with this drama queen. I mean, seriously, if Imran Khan could be described, he is a drama queen, a drama Emperor, I would say. The guy is incapable of rational thought when it comes to governance. And he is incapable of good governance in Pakistan.

And the reality is that he had three years in order to implement a lot of good policies that he promised during his election campaigns to implement, including cracking down on corruption, opening Pakistan to business, especially international business, opening Pakistan to investments, foreign investments, privatisation. None of this happened. I mean, basically empty promises.

Yet the only thing he managed to do for the Pakistani people is to open Pakistan to Turkish historical dramas about a glorious Ottoman past. And to radicalise even more of Pakistan's population, if even that was ever needed in order to persuade them that the only way to get back to glory is to embrace Islamism, as if Pakistan needed more of this poisonous ideology.

Thomas: I'm sure that Imran Khan's supporters amongst our listeners might have some things to say to that. But the thing about this situation in Pakistan, given its fractiousness is that the country is not necessarily going to stay together.

I mean, there are already focuses or movements towards separation and towards separatism in Pakistan, you have the Pashtuns, the Pashtun areas who to some extent feel an affinity with their Pashtun brethren in Afghanistan. You also have the Baluchis.

Aimen: Oh, of course, you have the BLA, the Baluchi Liberation Army. And they are intensifying their attacks against Pakistani military, as well as even against the Chinese companies and engineers that are working on the CPEC, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which basically ends in the Arabian Sea, on the shores of the Arabian Sea in Pakistan. This is where the province of Balochistan borders their brethrens, the Balochistan of Iran.

And this is why we have a problem. All of this is happening in a country which is not only rife with Islamist fundamentalism, with sectarianism, with a economy that is barely functioning and with a unreliable infrastructure and power and energy, but also armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons, 165 warheads in total, more than India actually possesses, as well as a fact of thousands upon thousands of ballistic missiles and cruise missiles.

Thomas: So, what does the future hold for Pakistan? And imagine the army does not succeed in keeping the country together for much longer. What happens? What would it mean for the world?

Aimen: A fractured Pakistan is a disaster, geopolitical and economic disaster, not only for India and Iran and the GCC and the Middle East and China, but for the entire world.

That is why it is important that a group of countries, the GCC, the United States, the European Union, as well as China and Japan, they must all come together to the rescue of Pakistan. Even India should be invited to come to the rescue of Pakistan.

Thomas: Well, to some extent, the United States has always been propping up Pakistan, not just military aid, but the IMF, for example, they're always bailing Pakistan out, or at least subsidising its economy. What are they doing these days?

Aimen: Don't start with the IMF, Thomas. Don't start with the IMF. You know what I believe the IMF stands for. This abbreviation stands for the international mother, and don't — I leave it to the imagination of the-

Thomas: Oh Aimen, that’s shocking. The IMF, the international mother of …

Aimen: Yeah.

Thomas: So, you love them. I can tell.

Aimen: Yeah. I love them as I love basically sleeping with 20 snakes in my bed. So, in all seriousness, Thomas, whenever they go to any country, the first thing they say is cut the subsidies.

But really, please, enough with this one size fits all economic remedies for some countries, because cutting subsidies to the poorest of Pakistanis is not really a sign of economic liberalism, or reform even.

It's going to provoke the street towards more chaos and instability. You don't do this with a country that is nuclear. You can do it to Argentina. They're not nuclear. You can do this to Venezuela. They're not nuclear. You can do this to Zimbabwe. They are not nuclear.

But you can do this to Pakistan when they are a nuclear-powered country with a problem, a deep seated problem of Islamic fundamentalist, violent extremist tendencies. You can't do that.

Thomas: When you think of Pakistan fracturing and allowing those extremist tendencies to really rise to the top, all the old players come up: Al-Qaeda to the Taliban there on the border, ISIS, all the big groups. But we're going to stop right there before we get into those groups themselves. Let's go for a quick break.

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Now Aimen, we've talked about the places where instability is still occurring and perhaps rising across the Middle East, but who are the people in the groups who are going to benefit from this instability?

For example, whatever happened to our old friends, ISIS, the Islamic state. The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria as it once was, but really now ISIS Global. They were the flavour of the month for a long time starting in 2013, 2014.

And then even when we recorded the first season of Conflicted back in 2018, they were still on the front pages fairly regularly. They've kind of gone quiet. What's going on with them at the moment.

Aimen: As I said before, Thomas, they are going through hibernation. And what worries me more than anything else is the fact that no one has yet found the missing ISIS' cash, the piles of cash that they had before the collapse of Mosul and other power centres of theirs.

Thomas: How much money are we talking about here?

Aimen: We’re talking about $400 million, give or take.

Thomas: $400 million. Put that in perspective, frankly, it doesn't sound like that much money to me, but of course, terrorism is cheap, isn't it?

Aimen: I never thought I will ever hear the words, terrorism and cheap in the same sentence, Thomas. I mean-

Thomas: Well, I mean, compared to the sort of budgets that terrorist enemies have, like the Pentagon, $400 million, so hardly buys I think a toilet in the Pentagon.

Aimen: Well, it conjures images basically of hey, kill one and you can basically bag two for free or something like that.

But the reality is that $400 million, just to give you an example, could actually finance almost 400 to 800 9/11s, given the fact like they are lucky to do it and they are not discovered. But just to give you an idea, that $400 million is not a small amount in the world of global terrorism because they act in small units.

If we are talking about them infiltrating certain countries and carrying out certain attacks, and yes, I mean basically 400 million is so much, but also it could enable local branches to buy loyalties of locals and start an insurrection somewhere. And from there they can raise even more and more money.

Thomas: And I suppose that's really the risk when we're talking about instability. If a state actor weakens and political fragmentation in any given country arises, it's with that money that ISIS can just zoom in there, spread some cash around, get some support, and create problems.

Aimen: Absolutely. Because at the end of the day, ISIS is nothing but a virus. It is absolutely virus. They wait to see a sick body in order to go, infiltrate and start weakening the immune system of that body and then take over.

And this is exactly what happened, ungoverned spaces. That's why I am worried about many of the countries that we mentioned at the beginning of this episode.

Thomas: So, let's dig down into something a little bit more specific when we're talking about ISIS and what about their leadership? Who is leading this group at the moment? We had the caliph, as he was so called, Baghdadi. He was killed. Who's leading them now?

Aimen: Well, for the past four years, they had four caliphs. And I think they should come up with a warning that if you are going to be the caliph, we just give you a disclaimer here. Being a caliph is bad for your life expectancy. It could shorten your lifespan by considerable margin.

I mean, you could basically be hit with a disease called dronatitis where a drone basically will find you, and just boof.

Thomas: So, who's the caliph of the week, then?

Aimen: The caliph of the week is a man called Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini al-Qurashi, or something like that. And it is a shadowy figure. No one knows who he is. No one knows what he looks like, and no one knows where he is located even.

Thomas: Surely that's not his real name. That name sounds calculated to appeal both to Sunni and Shia, Hussein Hassan. But then the Qurashi. This is a calculated propaganda name, surely.

Aimen: It's a propaganda name of course. And it is designed in order to say, “Look, we have a Hashemite, and albeit caliph, legitimate therefore,” and yeah, that's why some people so call it the califake, it is just a-

Thomas: But he is a real person, this man. Do you have any idea, does anyone have any idea who he might be?

Aimen: Well, there are rumours that he is one of the Turkmen, Iraq Turkmen who formed the backbone of the ISIS leadership. There were about 26 of them forming the ISIS Executive Council or Shura Council at the beginning in the 2012, 2013, 2014.

By now, only 11 of them remaining. I mean, as I said to you, basically being an ISIS member is not good for your health.

Thomas: Well, Aimen, you say that ISIS are in hibernation, and perhaps they are, but I think it's important to point out that things are happening on the ground in Syria and Iraq still.

So, a few weeks ago, Centcom, that important division of the U.S. military, it issued a press release saying that in the last month, in the month of May 2023, 38, operations were conducted against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. 31 ISIS operatives were detained by coalition, I guess forces, and eight were killed.

Now, that's a lot of operations, 31. So, clearly there is movement on the ground. There are still paramilitary activity happening.

Aimen: Of course, I mean, who said they are dead, or they are driven out of Iraq or Syria completely. They are not. And they are sensing that the U.S. might at some point withdraw from the region altogether. They are preparing for the next, what I would call sectarian conflict that could emerge in Syria and Iraq. And therefore, they are biting their time.

And as long as no one has found their cash yet, they are able to sustain a number of cells throughout both Iraq and Syria, as well as in other theatres such as the Afghan-Pakistan border and Somalia, a small presence in Yemen, as well as in East Africa, and especially on the border between Mozambique and Tanzania.

Thomas: America isn't their only enemy in Syria. There's also Russia, of course, and it's Vagner Group mercenaries. And ISIS has been attacking the Vagner Group in mysterious circumstances. We are going to do an episode down the line on the Vagner Group and its role in the Middle East.

But for now, it's important that ISIS is sort of trying, as you say, to prepare the ground for the next phase of Middle Eastern history. Maybe a phase where America's footprint is gone and they have Russia to deal with, Russia who is rather overstretched at another part of the world, Ukraine.

So, it's an example of how ISIS and the Middle East in general is totally intertwined in these larger geopolitical issues. And this has become particularly clear in Khorasan. So, the Islamic state of Khorasan, that part of Afghanistan where the Islamic state are situated, they have been taking advantage of the Russia-Ukraine situation to reanimate their supporters with this anti-Russian kind of rhetoric.

Russia was obviously an Afghanistan in the old days, we've talked about that a lot. And though America has been the big bad guy for a while, perhaps now that America's out of Afghanistan, now that America's maybe removing itself entirely from the Middle East, as its power wanes, Russia will become the renewed focus of Islamist terrorist attention. Do you think that's likely?

Aimen: Well, already it is the rhetoric that we start seeing not only in Afghanistan but also is the same rhetoric that we start to see in Syria. ISIS is galvanising their supporters against the presence of Russian forces in Afghanistan and also in Syria.

But there is another location where ISIS is started to put this low intensity propaganda using apps like Telegram and other specific communication apps in order to communicate this message, to use anti-Russian propaganda to not only raise funds, but also to recruit people. Where do you think? In Sudan.

Thomas: Oh, Sudan. Again, we're going to do an episode on Sudan. But that's interesting, especially since Sudan historically hasn't produced many Jihadists.

Aimen: No, it is ironic that Sudan never produced many Jihadists in the past because the Sudanese people generally are known to be the most mellow of the Arab people. They are easy-going, they aren't not exactly basically combative or prone towards basically joining groups that are known to be blood thirsty like ISIS.

However, they've been engaged before in civil wars and in conflicts. I mean, look what happened with South Sudan in the past. Look what happened in Darfur in the 2000s and the massacres there.

However, there is an element of the Vagner Group being involved in the Sudanese Civil War. We'll not go into details right now; we can cover it in the Sudan episode in the future.

So, you see, Sudan is already becoming yet another cluster (I don't want to say the other word), of the Middle East.

Thomas: Well, Aimen, it's clearly complicated, that's why we're going to do a whole episode on it. But the ISIS is taking advantage of instability in a place like Sudan as an example of what we've been talking about. Instability is bad. It causes terrorists to rise up and gain control.

Speaking of terrorists rising up and gaining control, we've talked about ISIS. What about your old best friends? Al-Qaeda. What's up with Al-Qaeda today? Al-Zawahri, Ayman al-Zawahri, the notorious right-hand man of Osama bin Laden then took over from Osama Bin Laden as leader of Al-Qaeda. Well, he's dead, isn't he?

Aimen: Well, you asked me what's up with Al-Qaeda. All I can tell you is that Ayman al-Zawahri looked up and that what's up.

Thomas: No, that was not funny. So, the man who replaced Ayman al-Zawahri as leader of Al-Qaeda is Saif al-Adel. He's an Egyptian, he's been part of Al-Qaeda for forever, since the very beginning. He's been living under house arrest or not in Iran. He's the man now in charge, Saif al-Adel, is that right?

Aimen: Yeah, I mean, well technically because the Shura Council of Al-Qaeda in Iran, those Al-Qaeda leaders who were residing in Iran for the past 20 years chose him as their leader.

However, not every member of Al-Qaeda outside of Iran is happy about that. There is a split. That's what I'm hearing. There is a split that is led by [inaudible 00:37:17] he used to be the leader of the bodyguards of Osama bin Laden. He is in Afghanistan, and he is not giving his allegiance to Saif al-Adel.

Also, my understanding is that the Al-Qaeda and Yemen are refusing to give their consent to Saif al-Adel being the leader because they don't trust the Egyptians and in particular, they don't trust the Egyptians who are who as they phrase it in the lap of the Iranians.

Thomas: I see. So, we've talked about this in the past, the Al-Qaeda, broadly speaking, had these two ethnic sides. There was the Egyptian side, Ayman al-Zawahri was Egyptian, Saif al-Adel is Egyptian and others, and there was a Gulf Arab side, speaking generally.

And there was sometimes distrust between the two sides. It is often the case that Gulf Arabs like yourself, Aimen, blame Al-Qaeda going wrong on the Egyptians. It's always the Egyptians fault. Whether that's as true as it is claimed is of course open to debate.

But the truth is there's definitely this ethnic tension within the group. And you're saying that it is once again, bubbled to the surface to the extent of a network-wide split even.

Aimen: Oh, yes. I mean, definitely Al-Qaeda is split. This is why there hasn't been any announcement since al-Zawahri in Kabul decided to go out to his balcony to get some fresh air, only for a ninja missile to turn him into fresh meat.

So, this is why there hasn't been any announcement yet of who would be the leader and the reason for no announcement, because they haven't agreed on it even.

Thomas: That's so interesting. And what do they really have against Saif al-Adel, he is an old hand. He's been around for a long time. Surely, he has a grip on strategy. He knows what the organisation is all about. What would they not like about him?

Aimen: It’s simple. This is what I would believe. I'm speculating here, but this is in a more educated speculation, given the fact that I spent 12 years of my life in the Jihadist Movement in Afghanistan and beyond, that Abu Hamza are nervous, as well as many other Saudis and Yemenis will be saying that first of all, we don't trust anyone who spent 20 years being sheltered by the IRGC and the Shia enemies of Sunni Islam. That's how they will phrase it. That's the first thing.

The second thing is that why is it that it has to be an Egyptian, always Egyptians in a position of power, always. Osama bin Laden was just a head figure, but the deputy is Egyptian, the head of operations is Egyptian, the head of training is Egyptian. 70% of the Shura Council are Egyptians.

Is it really Al-Qaeda of the Jihad or is it Al-Qaeda of the Egyptian Jihad, as they call it? So, this is why they are saying it is time for the leadership to go to a more competent group of people.

And I think what they mean by that is that you Egyptians are not competent. Well, I agree with them. They are never competent in anything. But for me, this is all music to my ears because nothing makes me happy than to see the old dinosaurs of my old days fighting over the scraps of what left off this giant mess called Al-Qaeda.

Thomas: You say that Aimen. But it actually worries me. I mean, don't forget, ISIS emerged out of a split within Al-Qaeda in Syria and Iraq. So, isn't it possible that as a result of this split, the non-Saif al-Adel aligned part of Al-Qaeda will emerge much stronger, more ideologically vitalized in the way that ISIS did in 2013? Could we not be seeing a new and improved Al-Qaeda on our hands down the line?

Aimen: The circumstances are different because when ISIS split away from Al-Qaeda, they were rich, they had a lot of money, a lot of resources, a lot of recruits, and they were in a rich environment for recruitment, which was Iraq and later Syria.

However, now they are in poor, dirt poor Afghanistan, and they have no access to finances, and they don't have the same access to resources that the IRGC would make available for Al-Qaeda if Al-Qaeda were to launch their attacks against the favourite enemy of Iran, which is America and possibly Saudi Arabia.

Thomas: Well, Aimen as you said before, it's the old cycle of terror, like the phases of the moon waxing and waning. Thank you very much for all of that insight. It's been very interesting to hear especially in the context of Al-Qaeda and ISIS. They're both seemingly currently at a low ebb, but that may not be the case for much longer given the instability that is rocking the region.

Ultimately, of course, terrorist groups are made up of individual people, individuals with certain motivations and intentions, all of whom are in one way or another, intensely religious.

They tell themselves a particular story interpreting Muslim history in a way that makes sense to them of the world around themselves today. And they use this story to entice other people to their cause, believers and converts with similar psychologies to themselves.

So, over the next few episodes, Aimen, we'll be exploring that historical narrative, interrogating it, and trying to get under the skin of what you could call the fundamentalist mentality. A mentality that, to be honest, Aimen, you and I both have within ourselves to some degree at least.

[Music Playing]

Aimen: Indeed, only you and I, Thomas, could put fun back into fundamentalism.

Thomas: Oh, man. Well, that's the dad joke to see us on our way. We'll be with you next time dear listeners, with a discussion of radicalization, recruitment and the psychology of fundamentalism. Stay tuned.

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Conflicted is a Message Heard production. This episode was produced and edited by Harry Stott. Sandra Ferrari is our executive producer. Our theme music is by Matt Huxley and Tom Biddle.