Returning Jihadists
01:14:03 Share

This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Whether you're selling a little or a lot, Shopify helps you do your thing however you cha-ching. From the launch your online shop stage all the way to the we just hit a million orders stage. No matter what stage you're in, Shopify's there to help you grow. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash special offer all lowercase. That's shopify.com slash special offer.

Welcome back to Conflicted, the podcast where we do our best to explain to you the most complicated conflicts raging in the world today, the conflicts of the Arab and Muslim worlds. This is our last episode of this series. We hope we've been able to shed some light on the issues that we have been discussing. Today, we'll dig a bit deeper into the psychology of the jihadist and what compels him to take up arms in defense, as he sees it, of Islam.

The prophecies, it's all a lie. It's all one big con from history. It's poisoned their minds. It's very intoxicating, unfortunately. Eamon will also give us some insight into how jihadists are recruited, where they are recruited from. But we'll also get to the ever-important issue of the jihadists.

How are we to respond to the threat of jihadists returning home? And we'll also find out how Al-Qaeda uncovered Amon's double agent status. So many things to explore today. Let's get started. This is Conflicted.

We're happy. It collapsed.

I'm here as ever with Eamon Dean, author of "Nine Lives: My Life as MI6's Top Agent Inside Al Qaeda." And I am Thomas Small, co-producer of "Path of Blood," a documentary film about Al Qaeda's attempt to overthrow the Saudi government.

Good morning, Eamon. How are you? I'm still alive, Thomas. I'm still alive. Still alive. Well, that, I hope, will long remain the case. I see you've got your usual dose of Diet Coke. You drink more Diet Coke, I think, than anyone I know. Except for Trump, though. Oh, well, that's something you and Donald Trump have in common. I wonder how much else you have in common. You never know. You never know. You never know.

Well, Eamon, it's been a long journey so far through your remarkable life and mining the incredible wealth of knowledge inside that head of yours. I can't thank you enough for revealing your secrets to me and to the listeners. I'm sure everyone is very grateful to you. Oh,

Oh, thank you so much. I think I maybe did a poor job so far, but, you know, we'll leave it up to the listener. Very humble of you. Very humble of you. I'm sure that Allah has just given you a few more pennies in heaven. Thank you.

So we've been discussing the war on terror, 9-11, the Iraq war, the Yemeni civil war, the Syrian civil war. And throughout it, we've returned again and again to a possibly unexpected motivation that underlies the Islamist actors in all of these conflicts.

their belief in prophecies, in end-time scenarios, their belief that the world is imminently going to come to an end and that they are playing an active and vital role in ushering in those end times.

And they really do believe it, Eamon. They really do. They do. It's one of the most powerful motivators and also one of the most powerful tools of recruitment. Tell me more. Okay. So imagine, Thomas, that I come to you. You are a university geek. Well, you look like a geek anyway. Thank you very much. Thank you.

I come to you at university campus and I tell you, Thomas, you know, what if I tell you that everything we're going through right now, every event, you know, major ones I'm talking about, that's happening so far since the 1950s, 60s and 70s and onward, it's all actually happening according to a divine plan. It's all been ordained long time ago. It's all been foretold.

If I tell you that, of course, I will just, you know, pick your interest because you see... Well, if you told me that, Eamon, I'd probably back away slowly. Ah, yeah, yeah. But, you know, of course, basically, I'm not going to you, you know, saying this in the Jehovah Witnesses kind of way, you know. You know, of course, I'm coming to you from a very different angle here. I'm coming to you about what you want to do about it.

You know, don't you feel there is so much injustice? Yes. Well, don't you feel basically that the world is going to, you know, to shit? Going to hell in a handbasket. Absolutely. Yes. You will say, don't you feel basically that, you know, the world is so chaotic that it needs order? And you will say, yes. OK, so so what kind of order you want?

And if you're a Muslim, if you're a devout Muslim, I would say, do you believe of the authenticity of the Quran and the Hadith? The Hadith, the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, yeah. Indeed. So if you say yes, okay. Do you believe there were already hints of what's going to happen? And he will say yes. What if I tell you every major event was foretold?

I suppose if I were a devout Muslim, I would already believe that. I would already believe that the events of history have been preordained within the mind of God. Perfect. Then in that case...

Do you want to be one of God's instruments in fulfilling these events? Does that require me strapping a bomb to my chest and blowing myself up? No, thanks. Well, you know, maybe we could actually find another function for you. Like building chemical weapons, for example, even? Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear. Guilty as charged. But you see...

You know, but you see, the issue here is that the journey towards radical Islam, and especially when we talk about radical Islamism, before it is violent, you have to go through the nonviolent part of it. You see, the journey through that requires considerable ideological training. Absolutely.

So, for example, there has to be, first of all, identity crisis. And that can only happen when your faith in your nation state is eroded. And that might happen easily in the Middle East because nation states there are famously oppressive and corrupt. Actually, it's even more easy in Europe and North America. Yeah, because the Muslim communities there are even more

alienated from their own overall societies. That's interesting, though. Are they actually alienated or are they being encouraged to feel themselves to be alienated by people who want to take advantage of that feeling? Of course, Thomas. Come on. There is no question

question. You know, you have clerics coming from other parts of the world preaching to them that what's happening to the rest of society in terms of modernity, progression, and also the other things that are considered vices like... Sexual license, drinking, gambling, marital breakdown, gangs, drugs. All of these are going to send them to hell. The clerics emphasize the hell factor here rather than heaven. They emphasize, you know,

Fear of the eternal damnation rather than hope for the eternal reward or but but for a pious Muslim Is it not true that that all of these things are vices and that living in this fallen Western? Society is going to send them to hell. Well, you see this is where you know, the message is different and

In Islam, you need to balance your message between love, fear, and hope. Love for the Lord, fear of his eternal damnation, but also, you know, hope for his eternal reward. So really, the message is God is...

So forgiving, but he's also so vengeful, but he loves you really that's it in one sentence that strikes me That strikes me as a real as a genuine religious conflict How is the ordinary believer supposed to navigate the tension between that triangle of? negative emotion look

This has made Muslims a very special class of their own from the rest of humans. Inside the West especially. Exactly, because of their conflicting relationship with their Western societies and the societies they have adopted. Well, frankly, I can imagine if I was a young Muslim today, a young Muslim male perhaps, especially living in a deprived suburb of a great Western city, and I felt that I was called to fall

follow the moral law, to be a good person. And yet I look around and all I see everywhere is temptation.

Surely it makes sense that in the midst of the huge amount of temptation for the average Muslim inside Western societies, they would feel hopeless. They would think, well, I know it's up to me to avoid all these temptations, but really, it's beyond my control. I just can't help it. It's everywhere. Sex, drugs, rock and roll, it's everywhere. But...

The problem with that is that the clergy, instead of preaching love and hope more than fear, they resorted to almost exclusively using fear as a weapon. They weaponized fear of the Lord and his damnation against the young in order to deter them from falling into temptation. So that created fear.

a generation of guilty people walking around. Only to deter them from falling into temptation? Or was there an ulterior motive as well to this kind of fear-based preaching? They were trying to keep their communities together. And under control.

There is an element of control there, because basically, look, I will give you an example here. Positive message works well, but it means you don't exert control. A negative message works also well in a sense that it keeps people under check, but actually what happens is it makes them afraid, it makes them weak, it makes them even vulnerable.

So if I tell you, Thomas, this is a glass of wine here. Now, I have two messages for you. It's actually a glass of Diet Coke, sadly. Okay, pretend. Okay. Just pretend. By a divine miracle, just turn into wine. Ooh, I like divine miracles that involve wine. So imagine that this is a glass of wine here, yeah? If I tell you, Thomas...

If you drink this glass of wine, in the day of judgment, you will be drinking from a cup of molten lava, melting your inside, and you will be keep repeating it forever and ever and ever. That doesn't sound pleasant at all. Okay. If I tell you, Thomas, if you refrain from drinking this glass of wine, God will reward you in the paradise with oceans of wine.

Yours just yours wine. That is nothing like you ever even conceived or imagined So I might still choose to drink the wine here and now exactly exactly But what I'm saying here is that you see the two different messages here one is positive and the other is negative One that tells you that you will be punished you'll go to hell. There is no hope for you. Bye. That's it. Goodbye

And the other one basically which tells you that, no, you know, look, I mean, basically God is forgiving. God understands, you know, he's the one who created these temptations for you. But at the same time, if you fall into them, he will be forgiving. But if you don't, he will be rewarding. Yes, I can see that that would be a much more... Unfortunately, that's not happening. You see, this is not the message.

that is being preached from the vast majority of pulpits not only in the Middle East, South Asia and North Africa but also in Europe and North America. So why are we talking about temptation? Why are we talking about this fear and love and hope? It's because when you have people who feel guilty, when they are afraid of eternal punishment,

What happened to them when other factors comes in, like identity crisis, humiliation, the feeling of anger over injustice, deprivation, alienation, when all of this come together, it is a toxic mixture which makes people vulnerable to people who could recruit them. I can go to anywhere, university campuses, prisons, mosques, even social gatherings, gangs even. I can go to them and say, you want to be completely forgiven? They will say yes.

You want to liberate your inner sadist and inner violent person, you know, to direct it at the right enemy and the right target. They will say yes. Do you want to feel empowerment? Because basically, right now, you are under their boots. Do you want them to be under yours? Yes. Well, join the jihad.

It's a one-way ticket to heaven while you exactly strike a blow for your faith and at the same time empower your own nation. So in the Middle East itself, as you've told us already, there's a civil war raging between, on the one hand, the forces of radical Islamism that seek to undermine the established nation states of the Middle East and reestablish the caliphate.

On the other side, you have those nation states themselves which seek not to be undermined and have a different vision of the world. But of course, those states are also full of pious Muslims.

So how do the Muslims on the other side of the civil war reconcile themselves to their religion and the current geopolitical order, which their Muslim brothers on the other side of that divide are saying is an evil world order? How do the other Muslims reconcile themselves to it? How do you reconcile yourself to it? I spent six years of my life in four different war zones.

you know, in the Bosnian conflict, in the Caucasus, in Afghanistan and in the Southern Philippines. All were civil wars. All were the institutions of the nation state collapsed. And you see clearly what could happen if the nation state collapsed. Total chaos. Total chaos. You see, you know,

Imagine everything that you take for granted. An ATM out in the street full of cash. A safe street. You know, traffic lights working. A gym you go to. A school you go to. A transport system that takes you from wherever you go to wherever you want to go. A hospital. A grocery store full of food.

A fire brigade, a police squad that will come and rescue you if you go into trouble. So all of these will disappear the moment the nation state collapses. And what will replace them? Irregular militias who come together under fear and under stress in order to safeguard their neighborhoods and neighborhoods.

And this is basically where injustices happen, where gangs take over, where war laws take over, where corruption is rife. Okay, fine, you can appeal to people's self-interest and say, support the nation state, but they're still Muslims. Don't they believe in these prophecies as well? Don't they believe in the whole worldview that says there must be a caliphate, the caliphate is absolutely vital to God's plan on earth? I believe that the majority are not conflicted.

and for a very good reason if you look closely at the prophecies. And this is really important. I'm not going into too many details not to confuse the listener, but there is a set of prophecies, roughly about eight hadith texts. You know, they are referred to as the prophecies of the black banners. The prophecies of the black banners. Sounds very romantic. Sounds more ominous, actually. So this...

set of prophecies were the bedrock, the building block of all of al-Qaeda's and ISIS' eschatological theology. How they are going to conquer the Middle East and beyond and usher in the end of times and bring in about the era of the Mahdi.

So, the prophecies in general, basically there are eight of them together, and they are almost the same wording, which says that there will be an army of the black banners rising from Khorasan, which they believe to be Afghanistan, even though it's mostly in Iran. Yeah, oh, the prophecy of the black banners. How does that prophecy go? Well, it says, لَا تَقُمُ السَّاعَةَ حَتَّى تَظْهَرَ الرَّيَاتُ السُّوِدُ مِنْ خُرَسَانٍ

which means that the army of the black banners at the end of time will arise out of Khorasan and they will raise their banner over Jerusalem. That's the prophecy. Indeed. So why do you think that the flags of Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Al-Shabaab, and many other Islamist groups are black?

Because they believed that they were the armies of the Black Banners, rising out of Khorasan and bringing it. Even Osama bin Laden, if you remember, in the first podcast, when we talked about 9-11, he actually, you know, talked about the armies of the Black Banners, liberating, you know, Jerusalem, liberating, you know, the Arabian Peninsula, bringing about change and restoring the caliphate. Because he believed that Al-Qaeda was the vanguard of that army of the Black Banners.

So an entire theology, an entire generation drank that Kool-Aid called, you know, the Black Banners and the prophecies of the Black Banners. This whole perspective of the imminent end of the world

It's so hard, I think, for most Westerners today, especially of the non-religious secularist mentality, to even comprehend what this might be like. I mean, some people might remember just before the turn of the millennium when the Y2K threat

hung over the world and everyone thought as soon as the clock struck 12 on January 1st, 2000, no computers would work and everything would go back to how it was in the dark ages. Planes will fall from the sky. Planes will fall from the sky, the end of the world. And sometimes maybe even more recently, the most extreme forms of climate change, catastrophism, the sense that within two years we're all going to be underwater.

It is something inside the human spirit. At least some human beings seem to be obsessed with the idea that the end is near. And in the case of the groups we're talking about, they very much have this spirit. Yeah, it's poisoned their minds. You see, it's very intoxicating, unfortunately. So the prophecies, it's all a lie. It's all one big con from history.

How? I want to give it a stab. Can I give it a stab? I think I know why. Tell me. If you remember, dear listener, I think in the third podcast or perhaps the fourth, we talked about the Umayyad dynasty, the first great world-straddling Muslim dynasty. It lasted roughly 150 years. No, 90 years. Really? Yeah. They fell at the year 750 A.D., but they were established in the year 661 A.D. God. God.

Edit this out. Eamon showing me up. It lasted about 90 years. As that dynasty was reaching its end, a new upstart dynasty came from Khorasan in northeast Iran. And they...

needed to prepare the way for their takeover of that dynasty by sowing the seeds of prophecy. They raised black banners, they swept out of Khorasan, they defeated the Umayyads and established the Abbasid Caliphate. And in fact, when I started looking at the Hadith narrations,

every last person of the narrations of this hadith, in other words, the first person to speak of this hadith and build a narration chain for it, going back to the Prophet, every single one of them, of the eight individuals, existed in towns where the Abbasid call and the Abbasid movement was at its peak. So basically, radical Muslims today are held in thrall to a bit of 8th century political propaganda.

And a theological fabrication. My goodness. So let's talk about one such group now. They've recently raised the black banners and infamously made themselves known around the world, ISIS. Tell me specifically in ISIS's worldview what they thought in terms of the prophecies was going to happen in Syria.

They thought that in Syria, the armies of the crusaders, they call them the Romans. Yes, they call them the Romans. It's actually quite flattering for us Westerners that we're the Roman emperors, as if they imagine we're walking around in togas with floral leaves on our heads, quoting Cicero. So you see, it's because of the fact that they were always referred to during the time and the era of the Prophet Muhammad as the Romans, because you see, the Byzantine Empire wasn't

call the Byzantine Empire until very, you know, until actually until the 17th or 18th century. Before that, in fact, it was the Roman Empire. In the West, we say the Roman Empire fell in 476. But actually, that is not true. Another lie, a scurrilous lie of history. The Roman Empire continued until 1453 when the when the Muslims finally snuffed it out. Nothing's ever been the same, Eamon. So,

They believe that the armies of the Europeans, the Romans, you know, will come and sweep in into Syria and there will be this big battle in the fields of Dabiq, you know, at a small town near Aleppo where, you know, the fate of Islam will be decided.

and that it will usher in the return of the Mahdi and the era of the righteous caliphate being restored, where they will sweep into rest of Iraq, to Jordan, to Israel, to Saudi Arabia, to Egypt and unite everyone. Of course, basically, you know, sometimes if you hear them,

You know, you are justified in asking them, you know, guys, whatever you're smoking, get a refund. You say that, but if I was a young ISIS fighter, there are times in the last three years when you might have really thought it was going to happen because, in fact, fierce fighting did go on.

within the vicinity of Dabiq in northern Syria. It did seem at times that it was all coming true. The Russians were intervening. The Americans were always on the verge of intervening. They must have felt great expectation. It's happening. It's happening. And guess what?

It basically just went completely against them. And why? Because, first of all, the prophecy of Dabiq is of questionable authenticity to begin with. So, again, we come back into the fact that they have built their entire ideology over extremely shaky grounds. Well, nonetheless, ISIS was extremely powerful.

powerful at one point and appealing and appealing it many many foreign fighters this even in the West they responded to Isis's call

What does that say about the war on terror? How is it possible, 17 years after 9-11, that young Muslims in the West and even as far afield as China are responding to these prophetic calls? Has the war on terror achieved nothing of convincing young Muslims to reject radical jihadism? The war on terror already was fundamentally flawed from the beginning.

It is a noble concept. It is actually something that needs to be done, except the way it was executed was completely and utterly shambolic. But apart from the invasion of Iraq, what else did the war on terror get wrong? It went away off track completely because they started to focus on killing leaders and

and were obsessed with leaders. So they were putting 25 million on Bin Laden's head, 25 million on Zawahiri's head, 5 million on this guy's head.

But they did not spend that money actually on strengthening the institutions of the nation states all over the Muslim world in a way that actually will tell people that the nation state is the only guarantor of their safety, security, stability, prosperity, education and everything else. But we're talking not only about Muslim fighters from the Muslim world. We're talking about Muslim fighters from outside the Muslim world. Let's take, for example, a very...

A little-known community, very large, that lives in western China, the Uyghurs. Now, the Uyghurs are one of the many peoples that have participated in the Syrian civil war, are an ethnically mixed Turkic Indo-European population in western China.

They speak a Turkic language. They are Sunni Muslims mainly. Sufis mostly also. Yes. Traditionally, they practiced the more mystically inclined Sufi branch of Islam, although more recently I think they have become rather Salafis. Their radicalism is on the increase there. Yeah.

The Chinese state has felt threatened by their efforts to organize as a community and advocate for autonomy. There's a separatist movement there, a jihadist movement there indeed.

In recent years, the Chinese state has responded very oppressively to their demands for autonomy. I think now there are over a million Uyghurs in detention centers across the province of Xinjiang in the west where they are located. Although the Chinese will dispute the word detention and call it re-education camps. A re-education camp. Well, we know what Maoists mean when they say re-education camp.

Tell us something about the Uyghurs and how they ended up in Syria alongside fighters from Wales and from France and from Germany.

You see, the Uyghurs are rather like in a class of their own. You know, it's a very interesting phenomenon, you know, and how you have people who are from China, Chinese citizens, forming an army. Chinese citizens, but ethnically not Chinese. They are not ethnically Chinese, but then China encompassed 56 ethnicities, according to official figures. In fact...

Take any Chinese currency, I mean, you know, for the listener, if you go, you know, to any money exchange, you know, outlet and you buy a Chinese currency, just look at it. You will find that there are four scripts, four writings basically on the Chinese currency. The first one is, of course, the Chinese characters. Then you have Mongolian characters. Then you have Tibetan characters. And then you have Uyghur characters.

So they are recognized basically. Their writing style is recognized as one of the four fundamental groups in China. Their writing style is recognized, but they as a community have been subject to gross violations of their human rights in recent decades. Of course, along with the Tibetans and many other and even the Christians of China. You say of course, but how is that going to instill in these communities of faith in the nation state, the nation state that is oppressing them? Yes.

While the Tibetans, who are Buddhist, decided basically to embark on overwhelmingly peaceful resistance and disobedience against the Chinese authorities, the Uyghurs decided that maybe a violent uprising or at least a violent campaign against the Chinese authorities and Chinese interests abroad could be the way forward.

So you say the Buddhists adopted a pacifist attitude towards their oppression. And once again, Muslims rushed to take up arms and start killing. Why are they always killing? So the Uyghurs are actually forcing us to ask ourselves a question here. Is Islam inherently violent? And I think this is a very important question, especially for listeners in the West, because there is a lot of anxiety within people about returning jihadist fighters to their homelands in the West. Are we supposed to be afraid of them?

So if we look at the Uyghurs, for example, here, they realize basically that next door to them in Afghanistan, there is a war raging. And that war is based on Islamic theology, which is the theology of jihad. They saw in jihad a possible path to salvation, to a way in which they can pressure the Chinese government. Remember the estimates now that there are a 4,000 strong Chinese

Uighur fighters, you know, in terms of their numbers. 4,000 fighters. That doesn't sound like that many, especially, you know, to the Chinese. There's 1.3 billion Chinese citizens or something like that. Still, remember Al-Qaeda were only 400 people only when they carried out 9-11. So we need to see not so much their numbers, but their potential impact.

And of course, the Chinese are afraid because for them, Xinjiang province, which is where the Uyghurs come from. Xinjiang province in the West. Yes. In the past, it used to be the back door, but now it is the front door. The new Silk Road initiative, where the Chinese are attempting to recreate the ancient Silk Road to circumvent the sea lane shipping route

so they can transfer their goods overland through Central Asia and Russia all the way to Europe. Absolutely. Not just only that, but also then southward towards Pakistan and into the port of Gawadar on the warm waters of the Arabian Sea. So, you know, the war in Syria raging generated thousands upon thousands of Uyghurs who were attracted to that conflict because they wanted to get military training and also the experience in order to go back to China and start an armed uprising there.

That brings us back to the question, is Islam inherently violent? Both yes and no. Basically, Islam gives you the option, whether you opt for peace or opt for war. Based on certain conditions, I suppose. Absolutely. So now, why we come back full circle here? Why jihadists and Islamic fundamentalists want to undermine the nation state, especially at this time, in this time of history? Because...

In Islam, it is absolutely inherent that the use of violence and the deployment of violence is only the prerogative of the nation-state, is only the prerogative of the Imam as the Prophet used to say. So if we say if they believe in the legitimacy of the nation-states, then only the nation-states can deploy violence or jihad.

Only them can wield weapons and use violence for political means. So you're saying they want to wield violence and in order to do so legitimately, they have to disavow the nation state. They have to say the nation state is not legitimate. It cannot legitimately claim a monopoly on violence. And that's why...

when they undermine the legitimacy of their nation states, whether it is Saudi Arabia or Egypt or Turkey or Morocco or whether it is the UK or France or Canada or Australia, what they do here is that they take away the legitimacy of the nation state, which means that

They no longer believe that their nation state is capable of deploying violence, deploying jihad to protect Islam. Therefore, it has now fallen upon groups and individuals to carry out that mission, to carry out that task. So you see here,

When you say Islam is inherently violent, yes, it is inherently violent, but the violence is under checks and balances of the nation-state. Therefore, it doesn't appear to be so for a long time in history because it was always a prerogative of the leader of the state

or the sheikh of the tribe, or the prince of the principality, or the king of the kingdom. It's always been like this. But now, with the advent of the modern nation-state, this is where things started to diverge. People wanted to delegitimize that nation-state in order for them to carry out, basically to deploy violence on their own initiative. But people's concerns about Islam being somehow inherently violent aren't only to do with jihad. For example, one hears...

You know, remarkably consistently, a story like this, a cartoonist in Denmark draws a scurrilous cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad,

and suddenly a hundred Muslims in Egypt rise up, kill 40 nuns and burn down their nunnery. How are people supposed to understand that? It happens with worrying consistency. There does seem to be a switch that you can switch on and the Muslims will just kill people. I mean, I put it bluntly to you, Eamon. Yeah. Because I think a lot of people are concerned about what seems to be this prevalence of violence within Muslims.

And in fact, the funny thing, well not so funny actually, it's more like sad thing, is that they are going against the Islamic principle of ignoring falsehood. You see, the caliph Umar bin al-Khattab, who was the father-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad,

who was a second caliph, the second successor, truly the nation builder of Islam. He's the one who built the nation of Islam as a nation, as a nation state. A political entity. A political entity with, you know, ministries and departments and made it, you know, he created the Muslim civil service. Taxation. Yeah. So he created the Muslim civil service. And so he said that what you need to do when you hear something false and provocative is

is you kill it by ignoring it. For if you start to blab about it, exactly, this is what he said, blab, tharsara, in Arabic. For if you start to blab about it, your enemies will use it against you. Okay, fine. That's what he said. But isn't that just another version of the fact that when Muslims do something that is distasteful, it's easy to say, well, they're not really practicing Islam. That's not really Islam. But where does that leave us? Well, again, we come back to the fact that

You know, over the last 50 years, so many articles of the faith that shouldn't have been undermined has been undermined. You know,

suicide has always been considered to be completely forbidden. So 1400 years of theology turned upside down with this legitimizing, this collective madness of legitimizing suicide bombing. So suddenly an absolute article of the faith that suicide is forbidden, no exceptions, has been thrown out of the window. That jihad, the military jihad, which was always a prerogative of the nation state and its leaders,

also has been thrown out of the window. Now anyone can wage jihad. Exactly. The execution of people by beheading from the front of the neck, in other words, as animals are slaughtered, was never part of Islam, ever, ever. There hasn't been any recorded instance of it. Usually, you know, the beheading happened by a swift, you know, sharp strike to the back of the head, like a guillotine, for example, swift,

Unlike this barbaric, you know, animal life slaughter, which we see ISIS. Exactly. This has never happened before. It's only now in the last 50 years we start to see it, you know, emerge this belief in prophecies that, you know, big things are about to happen and therefore we have to take up arms.

It never happened before, this undermining of legitimate leaders, you know, and kings and princes and sheikhs, you know, that we see all over the Muslim world, especially in the Middle East. It never happened before. We never have it. We've never seen it in this intensity. So there is crisis within Islam. You know, it's almost as if Islam is becoming unhinged

You know, because of the fact that it finds itself in a very foreign, alien place and cannot, you know, feeling bewildered and disoriented and still not able to find its place in the modern world. So what's the solution then? I mean, maybe the solution is just let's stamp out Islam. No more Islam. Islam is a problem. Wow.

No one can do that. It's impossible. I know you have almost two billion people. What do you do with them? And plus, the vast majority are kind, decent, good people. You experience that yourself. Of course, of course. So again, what we do about it, what is the great solution here? Well, the great solution is, again, we confront them with the absolute stark choice, either the nation state or the abyss of the absolute chaos. That's it.

There is no other choice. If they want to go with the nation state, then this is where the cure starts, where we start to take them on the journey towards modernity, you know, and strengthen their belief in the nation state. And many people do. I mean, basically, there are many countries within the Muslim world who have done quite well. And in fact, we need to study their experience. Take a country like Oman. Oman. Yeah. It's in the Arabian Peninsula. It is...

Ultra conservative, as conservative as it could be, although less than Saudi Arabia. And it has ancient history. It's deeply Muslim. And yet how many people from Oman went to join ISIS? I don't know. None.

But isn't that because the Omanis actually practice a very strange and fringe form of Islam called Ibadism? Very few Muslims are Ibad-y Muslims. So perhaps they just don't feel called to join their Sunni or Shia brethren in Syria. Actually, 40% of Oman are Sunnis.

And still, even the Ibadis considered Sunnis anyway. So why didn't Oman send foreign fighters to Syria and elsewhere? Not only that, actually. How many people from Oman joined Al-Qaeda? Only one, and he had mental issues, I remember. So maybe he just wandered there, you know, basically, aimlessly. So why is that? You know, we come back to the fact that there are societies that seem to have been immune.

you know, to the scourge of extremism. And I think it's because of the fact that they were comfortable with their nation state institutions. And that's what Oman is.

Oman, there is a lot of loyalty towards the nation state. The UAE, for example, which has about 1.5 million inhabitants who are citizens, actually. How many of them joined ISIS or Al-Qaeda? In total, there are about 14 throughout its history, only 14 people. And that is very low percentage.

Again, it's the comfort with the nation state and its institutions. You know, the fact that they believe in their leaders, they believe in their nation state, even though it's not democratic, Oman is not democratic. But there is something about it, about both countries, which meant that they were comfortable with the fact that they have nation states that protect them and give them, you know, the ability to lead a good and decent life. But now we look at, you know, the percentages from other countries. For example,

In Saudi Arabia, 145 out of a million joined ISIS. That doesn't sound like a huge number to me. But still, you know, 145. In the UAE, basically, you know, it's about 8 per million. Hmm.

In Kuwait, you know, the estimates were about between 45 to 47 per million. In Saudi Arabia, as I said, 145 per million. In Tunisia, which is the complete opposite of Saudi Arabia, it lived under secular rule, you know, extreme secularism. And it's a democracy. And it's a democracy. You know, it's only like in the last seven, eight years it was a democracy. But nonetheless...

The percentage is 206 per million. So it's even greater than Saudi Arabia. So it's not necessarily that Saudi school curriculums produce so many radicals. But, you know, you can see like in Tunisia produced 206 per million. If you look at the UK is 354 per million because we are not doing the entire population, only adjusting the numbers of those who joined ISIS from within the Muslim population here.

So if we only take the Muslim population, really 354 per million, more than twice the average Saudi. So can you imagine here that if you are a British Muslim, you are twice, more than twice likely to join ISIS. And in France, it is 384 per million. Even more than Britain. And it's the same percentage in Germany. And then we go to Belgium, which is even the worst one, 722 per million.

So these figures are stark that in the West, in Western countries, the likelihood of Muslims being radicalized is actually higher than in Muslim countries. And that's been the case really from the beginning of the war on terror era when...

Muslims, let's say, who had spent a bit of time in the West were much likelier to be radicalized than not. Like Muhammad Atta, the leader of the 9/11 plot, who had spent time studying in Germany. Even further back, when the godfather of all radical ideologues, Sayyid Qutb, spent years in Colorado in the United States studying and returned home with a burning desire to destroy everything American.

So, there is something about the West, but does this mean that we in the West should be particularly concerned? Are the foreign fighters who left the West to fight in the battlefields of the Middle East going to come back, group, gather, and conspire to undermine our nation states? Should we be concerned? This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Whether you're selling a little or a lot,

Shopify helps you do your thing, however you cha-ching. From the launch your online shop stage all the way to the we just hit a million orders stage. No matter what stage you're in, Shopify's there to help you grow. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash special offer, all lowercase. That's shopify.com slash special offer.

you cannot, you know, basically just ignore the fact that these people are going to come back, not just only traumatized by the war, the fact that they have themselves committed acts of, you know, terrorism and acts of violence in these wars, they will come back

And most likely they will conspire to undermine the nation state by either recruiting more people, sending more people abroad because they will have this kind of what they call it in urban settings, street credit.

But some listeners would say this is just right-wing paranoia. Actually, these are young, misunderstood people. We can easily reintegrate them into society. We can enroll them in de-radicalization programs. We don't need to punish them. We should welcome them back and make them feel like they belong. I know that what I'm going to say here is a little bit controversial, a little bit heartless, might seem.

But if you make up your mind, if you decide to join a group like that and you are not willing whatsoever to abandon their principle, to renounce their principles, to renounce their ideology and theology, if you are not willing to cooperate with your security services and the police and the government when you return, I think you shouldn't return then.

You shouldn't return or you shouldn't be allowed to return. You shouldn't be allowed to return even. I think Theresa May did the right thing when she started... Theresa May, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, who used to be the Home Secretary for many years. Yeah, I think she did the right thing by stripping those who are dual nationals of their British citizenship once they are proven to be fighting alongside ISIS or al-Qaeda abroad.

Because apart from the fact they're committing treason because these groups are seeking to undermine the nation state, including the United Kingdom nation state. Also, at the same time, she's trying to prevent them from coming back. Because once they come back, they will do far more harm than good. In fact, what good they will do to begin with. So you think these people can't be rehabilitated? I mean, we read about a new pilot scheme in Denmark where an entire town has been given over to jihadist rehabilitation. It's not...

They don't live under prison conditions. They live in a proper town. They are convinced of the errors of their ways. And in the Middle East as well, Saudi Arabia has a very celebrated rehabilitation program. Even in Nigeria, the Nigerian government has sponsored a rehabilitation program for Boko Haram fighters, though I think in that case especially, the recidivism rate is quite high.

Can these young men not be rehabilitated? And actually, young women now, too. You need to divide them into different categories, from the hopeless to the hopeful, and everything in between. And this can be only assessed on individual-by-individual cases.

Seriously, because you have those who were leaders and those who were followers, those who are educated, those who are not educated and everything in between. You know, we're dealing with humans here. So some people can be rehabilitated. You do hold that to be a possibility. Yes, but a minority. I still basically I'm a bit skeptical. I would say basically a minority can be rehabilitated, especially if they are as, you know, as I was in the past, basically an annoyingly inquisitive and a free thinker.

You know, this is what needs to happen. You spot them. You see, basically, that there are people who think for themselves, who are, you know, willing to question what they've done. These are the people you should target. Those who stubbornly, stubbornly hold on to the animosity towards every society on earth, that you should isolate.

I would accept individuals who want to come back if they just go and walk in into the British embassy in Ankara or in Nairobi or in Islamabad and declare, I'm a walk-in, that's it. I want to renounce the group and everything that stands for, whether it's Al-Qaeda or ISIS or Taliban or Shabab or whatever. If they do that, then that is actually a true willingness.

to abandon that path. And you can speak from experience here because in a way that's precisely what you did way back in 1998 when you held up your hand and said, my

"My bad. I don't want any more of this." But this hardline view you take towards foreign fighters, could you not be accused of a certain amount of hypocrisy? Because here you are, an utterly reformed former jihadist. You worked for almost a decade inside the Western security services protecting those states from the threat of Islamism. If people had adopted such a hardline view towards you, you might have been the one forever outcast from society.

You know, when you come willingly and say that I've been part of this movement for a set amount of years and I'm willing to cooperate fully and to actually expose every bit of information that I have. In fact, basically, I'm willing even to work against it. It's different, completely different. People will not say, oh, no, we don't want anything. No one will say that.

you know, they will be out of their minds if they do that because you come and you bring with you a wealth of intelligence, you know, that needed in order to safeguard societies and nation states. So in my case, I spent four years inside the jihadist movement for

For every year I spent as a jihadist, I spent two years as a double agent. Do you feel that those eight years you spent as a double agent inside al-Qaeda earned you your atonement? Do you feel that you atoned for your sins? Of course. I think four years would have been more than enough, I think, in my opinion, because I risked my life constantly for that. I'm still to this day, actually, a target of a fatwa. Why is that?

How is it that you, in the end, stopped being a double agent for al-Qaeda? Why aren't you still working for MI6, helping to destroy radical jihad from within? Alas, Thomas, it's your own country.

The United States. The great Satan once again. That ruined it completely. What happened? Well, Thomas, I was actually, you know, for the first time in my life, for the first time ever, I was going on a holiday just as a normal human being. So when is this? When did this happen? This was June of 2006. June of 2006. All right. So the Iraq War is absolutely at its fever pitch of sectarian bloodletting. You could have

you were probably working overtime undermining terrorist operations and cells. And then you decide, well, I'll go on a holiday. And then what happened? Yeah. So I was so overwhelmed by everything. You know, there were so many cells uncovered and, you know, threads, you know, basically identified and plots by terrorists thwarted. So I thought, well,

okay, you know, look, I've earned my holiday. So I remember the service basically telling me, okay, fine, no problem at all. Where do you want to go? Well, Paris. I never seen Paris. I would like to go to Paris. I spent four days there. You know, I'm just going to tour everything, you know, the Eiffel Tower, the River Thames boat, you know, Notre Dame Cathedral, the Louvre. I mean, every

It says so much about you, Eamon, that after eight years as a double agent inside Al-Qaeda, instead of going to a beach somewhere and relaxing, you wanted to plunge yourself into the cultural wonders of Paris. Absolutely. So there I am in the middle of a tour boat in Paris.

And the second day of my holiday— You're sailing down the Seine. You're looking at Notre Dame, the lovely 19th century townhouses. You're thinking, nothing can get better than this. This is the apex of relaxation, and you get a phone call.

It was a text message, actually. Oh, a text message. You get a text message. So I get a text message and I look and it says basically, you know, it is from an associate of mine from within Al-Qaeda based in the Gulf. And he sent me a text message and he says, what the hell is this? Go and read the Time magazine website. So what did you think?

I thought, well, that's a bit cryptic. Maybe like, you know, he's angry at, you know, some American mishap or something like that, or they have, you know, bombed some civilians in Fallujah or Ramadi or whatever. So that text didn't seem threatening to you? Yeah, but nonetheless, I thought, OK. I went to an internet cafe and as soon as I went into the Time magazine website, it says there,

A brilliant spy within Al-Qaeda revealed that there was a chemical attack plot against the New York subway. Well, I remember that attack plot. It was infamous. They were going to release some kind of gas nerve agent on the New York subway system and potentially kill hundreds of people. Yeah, it was actually blood agent. But nonetheless, these are just technical terms. So basically, I was looking at it.

And then it talks about this brilliant spy inside Al-Qaeda who actually stopped an attack against the U.S. Fifth Fleet sailors who identified leaders of Al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia and identified the external head of operations for Al-Qaeda, Hamza Rabi'i, and blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever. At what point did you think, oh, my God, they're talking about me. I'm that brilliant spy. Yeah, I was actually reading and I felt basically my heart sinking all the way to my feet.

And, you know, and immediately, you know, and when I started reading basically even more, because basically that article was, you know, foreshadowing a book that's going to be released the week after in the US. It was written by Ron Susskind, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist.

He got the leak from high up in the American command chain. What's the name of the book? The 1% Doctrine. The 1% Doctrine. Yes, I've read it. It's quite a good book. Well, 46 pages of that book is devoted to me, actually. Oh, well, Eamon, my goodness. I'll have to get you to sign my copy. No. I will sign my book to you, not that journalist's book. But nonetheless, he decided to give me a name.

And out of the 4,000 different names in Arabic for boys, he decided to go with my real name. Ha ha ha ha ha.

Did he know he was revealing your real name or is this just sheer chance? Well, sheer chance, like what? One in four thousand chance, basically, that he decided to give me a name and that name happened to be my name. Ali. Yes. So I was so angry. I mean, I just picked up the phone and I even though it was Sunday, I phoned my handlers in a back in London and I told them, go and read it. And then five minutes later, I received a phone call saying to me on the first train back to London now.

They realized your cover was blown. Yeah. So how had this journalist found out that you were a brilliant spy inside Al-Qaeda? Well, we suspected at that time and still to this day that the leak came from the office of the then Vice President Dick Cheney. Oh, Dick Cheney. Gosh, is there no end to your villainy? Yeah. What a dick, huh? Well, it could be worse. He could have shot you in the face. I know.

That's how he treats his friends. Imagine how he treats his enemies. Indeed. So that's why my spying days came to an end. It's because I couldn't do it anymore. So you got on the first train back to London. You arrive. Your MI6 handler meets you. And what happens? They say, sorry, buddy, your time's up. You've

You got to leave. Well, you know, more or less, basically, we have to change your apartment now, you know, basically. So you can't go to your apartment and, you know, someone else will go now and clear your stuff from there. We will have to take you to another city at the moment in order to, you know, think about your future. And of course, basically, I mean, it was full blown crisis. And how did you feel? Well, I felt betrayed. I felt basically that there was no need for this.

And when did it become clear to you that al-Qaeda did realize that you had, for all those years, been a double agent, betraying them from inside? They must have considered you a friend, a comrade in arms, a fellow struggler. How did they react? Actually, what happened is I immediately changed the phone numbers, closed email accounts, and that's it. Basically drifted away from them.

To the point, basically, where they were asking my family members even sometime, you know, how can we get hold of him? And did you tell your family, don't tell them? Don't tell anyone. Basically, I'm drifting away. In fact, my family was so happy. They think basically that I left Al-Qaeda. They didn't know basically I was a spy, you see.

So I told them, well, you know, I want to just go on the, you know, straight and narrow now. Basically, I don't want to be involved with these people anymore. You know, so could you help me with that? And they said yes. So you never heard from Al Qaeda directly, but you did know that quite quickly after your cover was blown that a fatwa, an Islamic ruling was released authorizing your...

your immediate execution. And ironically, the people who intercepted that fatwa when it was going from northern Pakistan all the way to Bahrain and Saudi Arabia and the Kuwait and other places in the Gulf where I used to used to frequent.

The ones who intercepted it were the Americans. So they won the British, you know, and of course the services gave me a quick warning that, well, just to let you know that a fatwa has been issued. How did this fatwa play out? I mean, did they send a kind of, you know, wanted dead or alive poster around all the cells across the world saying, if you see Eamon Dean, you kill him dead in the street?

No, the fatwa basically was a little bit milder than that. You know, it's basically says that we have determined that this person, me, Ayman Deen, although they gave me another name, of course, basically in that fatwa, we have determined through a tribunal, an evidence based tribunal. Yes, it was written like this.

that he betrayed the cause and that he left the fold of Islam. So basically they declared me a murtad, which means apostate. An apostate. And apostates in Islam can be killed. And have aided the infidels, you know, al-kuffar as they call them, in their war efforts against Islam. And therefore, if given the chance, if given the chance, then whoever can do it, then they should kill me.

For 10 years, then, you have had a fatwa. You had this target on your back. Have you ever come close to being executed by al-Qaeda? Well, I wouldn't say executed or something like that. Assassinated, then. There was an attempt in 2009. Someone wanted to push me either in front of a train and then later in front of a bus. How do you know? How do you know? What happened? Because he was trying to follow me in the underground. He knew me. He knew who I was. And it was a chance encounter completely. And the look on his face was murderous.

So I had to evade him in order to escape. And I was able to escape. That's very dramatic. Did you did you even speak to him? Did you know he was just shouting from behind? Oh, my God. Did you have did you like what happened? You ran away. I just decided to run away. You know, and in these instances, don't be brave. Don't be idiots. You know, just run away.

And the second instance, you know, it was quite relatively recent. Almost two years ago, actually, in summer of... Well, actually, no, it was September of 2016. I was going to my nephew's wedding in Bahrain. And I think that was what alerted them because, you see... But this is surprising that you would even go to a family wedding. I mean, you must know that if you appear in public like that, then you might be killed. Unfortunately, I became complacent because...

You know, years and years passed and there is nothing. And then, you know, I thought, well, he's my nephew. It's a wedding in Bahrain. You know, what would... What could happen? I mean, so I...

I was on my way there and I remember I booked the tickets and everything and all of that. And then just shortly before the wedding, I received a phone call from the family in Bahrain telling me that the authorities got in touch. Don't come. There is a plot against you. They just uncovered it. And they realized basically that they were actually aware of my arrival six weeks in advance because of this wedding. But what about your family itself? Were they under any threat? Maybe al-Qaeda would have kidnapped a sister or a niece and hold her for ransom to get

Oh, no, they don't do that. You know, it's not in the Arab world. They don't do that at all. I mean, basically, this is just a very alien concept. Maybe like, you know, this is a drug cartels in Mexico. Even for Al-Qaeda? Al-Qaeda has sort of morals? Is that what you're telling me? Even for Al-Qaeda or ISIS because we come from a tribal society and in tribes, basically, if someone, you know, offend you, you don't go and take it on the family because then the family will go and take it on your family and then the clan will take it against the clan and there is retribution. No, you know, basically, it's

Individual disputes are held by – or even between an organization and an individual is basically between that organization and that individual. What about ordinary Muslims? Now your story is out there. They know that you were a traitor to Islam in some people's minds. You must have had some unpleasant encounters with them. Oh, yes.

multiple unpleasant encounters, I would say. But nonetheless, I always stand my ground, you know, and I always have these incredibly funny exchanges with them. Tell me about one of them. Yeah, I remember one, you know, there was this guy, basically, who he was actually my Uber driver, you know, and, you know, he was telling me, don't you feel basically you have betrayed the community? How did he know who you were? Because when you book Uber, you know, your name, you know, comes out, basically. And it just so happened that he was listening to Majid Nawaz's

LBC radio interview of mine. I see. So he just heard an interview with you on the radio. Yeah. And here he is. Ding.

Ding! Him and Dean. Absolutely. And so, you know... And who was this Uber driver? Was he some kind of crazy-eyed jihadist sympathizer? Oh, no. Basically, he was just an ordinary, you know, British Pakistani. And, of course, basically, British Pakistanis have a great pride in their community. And so, basically, he said, you know, he said, you know, brother, don't mind me asking, but don't you feel basically that you have betrayed, you know, the community? So, I looked at him and I said...

I did not know that Al-Qaeda was a community. But now that you have alerted me that they are a community, basically, I will contact the Committee for Racial Equality to add them there as a persecuted minority. So you say, I didn't betray the Muslim community. I betrayed Al-Qaeda. Exactly. And then I reminded him. I said, brother, do you know what Imam Ali said earlier?

and of course Imam Ali, the fourth caliph, son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad, and revered for both Muslims, all Muslims basically, Sunnis and Shia. So he said, what did he say? I said, well, look, he said that loyalty to the treacherous is treachery in the eyes of God. Betrayal of the treacherous is treachery.

is loyalty in the eyes of God. These people betrayed their nation states. They betrayed their communities. So you just betray a bunch of traitors. That's what happened. Did he accept that? Did he think, oh, okay, well, that makes sense. He went on after that to say basically that he was always angry at people who preached in mosques and sent people to die instead of them actually going to fight and die, talking about the hypocrisy of it. So it seems to have awakened something within him.

Another example also, I was going actually to get a fever medicine for my daughter, you know, and I went to Boots, you know. A pharmacy here in the UK. Yeah. And in an affluent part of London. And there there was this Muslim woman in hijab, you know, a pharmacist.

And she recognized me immediately. Of course, she follows, you know, current events. She seems like a news junkie. And, you know, she looked at me and, you know, she was so angry. She said, basically, I mean, you know, you're a traitor. I mean, you know, you betrayed your community. You betrayed Islam. And, you know, I don't want to serve you. Just go. What did you say? Yeah. You know, I said, you know, what is it that basically, you know, upset you about what I did? She said, how could you live with yourself having stabbed your brothers in the back?

So I said, first of all, you know, there were no brothers. You know, there were people basically who were on a rampage throughout the Muslim world, plunging it into death and destruction. But let me ask you here a question, sister. If I see you walking down the road and I see someone coming behind you, taking out a knife and about to stab you in the back.

So if I come behind them and I stab them in the back before they stab you in the back, you see, their intention was to kill you. Mine was to save you. And you know perfectly well that what the Prophet Muhammad said, that actions are judged against intentions. My intention is to save you. Theirs was to kill you. What did she say? She said to me, how old is your daughter? And, you know, she just

So your explanation had put an end to her accusations? So given this fact, that after everything you've experienced, you remain a pious Muslim...

Sunni Muslim, what are you doing today to help convince your co-religionists to adopt your brand of Sunni Islam? Open-minded, joyous, hopeful, and loving. There are multiple ways in how to do it. And the first one is to reinforce the belief that

in the nation state. I know basically the listener is sick of this phrase now, the nation state. But because I've seen

you know, what a collapse of the nation state could do to a society. So that's why I always tell people, look, if we believe in the nation state, then the legitimacy of those who wield and deploy violence outside of the parameters of the nation state are no longer legitimate. That's how we delegitimize them.

Once we legitimize the nation state in the mind of young Muslims, then we would have traveled a long distance in the what I would call counter violent extremism journey. And Muslims in the West, especially Muslims, but isn't that an uphill battle? They look at the nation states here, their states, their governments. They think, well, these these governments don't represent my interests. They don't represent me personally.

In the furthest extreme of this perspective, these are Christian governments in some respect. They're not Muslim governments. I understand and I sympathize with this, but you see, we have to come back to the issue of people always having high expectations.

it's almost not just only, you know, with Muslims, but also with millennials. I mean, basically, we always talk about, you know, those, you know, so-called snowflakes or whatever, basically. I mean, and of course, I don't insult them. I don't call them snowflakes. I mean, I believe basically this is an insult, but nonetheless...

Because of the high expectations they have, because of the technological revolution that we had, they have high expectations of what their governments can do and what their societies should provide them with. And these high expectations are then hitting the walls of reality. And this is why I always say that when we manage people's expectations...

You know, this is when we can achieve a lot, not just only with young Muslims, but also with young people, whether Muslims or not. The second thing, there was a technique I used

which basically cured an old friend of mine of his rabid 40 years old, you know, anti-American sentiments. Can you believe it? No, I'm almost 40 years. I've dabbled with anti-American sentiments myself. So try it on me. I mean, sometimes you have to be self-hating, you know, in order to love yourself. You have no idea the depths of my self-hatred. So, so,

So you see, I remember a friend of mine who was so anti-American and he's been always like this all his life. So I managed to, you know, to really, you know, tame his anti-Americanism to a manageable level after it was out of control.

I remember I met him in Turkey just last year and he was so angry at America for everything that's happening. You know, Trump this, Trump that. You know, they are bombing Syria. They are bombing Somalia. They are bombing Afghanistan. They are killing everyone. Blah, blah, blah, blah. So his name is Hamza. So I said, Hamza, you know, just indulge me. Mental exercise. And he said, yes. I said, just close your eyes. He closed his eyes.

I said, imagine America on the map. See it as if you are seeing it from the International Space Station, just above there. And imagine it basically starting to explode in big super volcanoes and started to sink into the ocean. And I can see a big smile on his face when I was saying this.

Good. Do you see it? You see the water and the ocean submerging it? Yes. Okay. Now imagine the world controlled by Putin and shipping and Europe cowering and can't do anything. Do you like this world now? And I remember he opened his eyes and he said, maybe America is a necessary evil. And that's what you believe, Eamon, that America is a necessary evil. I believe America is necessary.

But whether it's evil or good, I would say it's a necessary and that's it. It's a necessity. It's a necessity. Whether it's evil or good remains to be seen, I suppose. Well, Eamon Dean, what is the mystery behind you? Your life story is truly remarkable.

you have been through more than the average person by a degree of a hundred, say. You're being very generous and kind here. You've almost been killed several times on many battlefields. You were a double agent inside MI6. Then, in your own words, you sunk to your lowest ebb and joined the financial industry. And yet, though you live with the threat of imminent assassination from your former al-Qaeda brothers...

You have this remarkable joyous spirit. You're quick to laugh. But I don't really understand. Aren't you traumatized by all that's happened to you? Don't you suffer cold sweats? Do you wake up screaming in the night? Where is the PTSD inside you after everything you've experienced? You're really an enigma to me, despite how much, to be honest, I love you. You're my brother. And yet I'm always thinking...

Is this guy really okay? I mean, do you need therapy or something? I might have PTSD. It might be of a mild form. Thank God for the fact that he made me accept everything. You know, one of the things basically I believe is a cure for PTSD basically is just to have a complete submission to the will of the cosmic universe and what's happening there. Well,

Submission to the Great Plan is perhaps the best definition I can think of for the word Islam, which means submission. And, you know, we're coming to the end of this extraordinary journey with you. And I have perhaps vocalized rather stridently people's concerns about Islam, about Muslims, especially in the current era. But you remain a Muslim. I think you've even described yourself as a Salafist to me still.

And yet you are the most open-hearted, intelligent, fun-loving person I've ever met. Oh, thank you. So kind. I can say the same about you. Even though you are a fundamentalist, orthodox, Greek orthodox Christian. I don't know how fundamentalist I am. This has been conflicted.

Six episodes on the conflict raging across the world really, inside the heart of Islam. I'm not sure if we've done it justice. It's a very complicated story. Perhaps the listener has more questions now than answers.

But hopefully we've gone some way towards increasing the general understanding of what's ultimately an extremely important phenomenon in our time. All we can hope for in life is increase of understanding and increase in consciousness. And maybe this podcast has contributed to that. I certainly thank you, Eamon. And I thank you, the listener, for sticking with us for these six episodes of Conflicted Consciousness.

This episode of Conflicted was produced by Jake Warren and Sandra Ferrari. Original music by Matt Huxley. If you want to hear more of Conflicted, make sure you search for us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you download yours.