Mo is a young boy growing up in a traditional Egyptian household, but beyond the front door of the family's modest London flat is a completely different world - the streets of Hackney. The impressionable Mo idolizes his handsome older brother Rashid and wants to follow is his footsteps. However, Rashid, a charismatic and shrewd member of a local gang, wants a different life for his little brother and deals drugs hoping to put Mo through college. One eventful summer, Rashid's sexual awakening forces Mo to confront his own fears and phobias and threatens to tear the brothers apart.

Based on the real-life experiences of Mende Nazer,the story unfolds as twelve-year-old Malia,daughter of champion wrestler Bah,is abducted from her Sudanese village in the Nubar Mountains by pro-government Arab militia and sold into slavery to a woman in Khartoum,who beats her for touching her daughter. After six years she is sent to London,where her name is changed,but her miserable life of servitude continues. Her passport is taken and she is told that her father will die if she goes to the authorities. Fortunately she meets a sympathetic person who seems to offer her the hope of escape and reunion with Bah,back in Sudan. For all the film's optimism an end title states that there are around 5,000 'slave' workers currently in Britain.

Ziad Jarrah, a young Lebonese man from a good family goes to Germany to attend college and starts dating a Turkish girl named Aysel. Although not very religious and accustomed to Western ways, Ziad becomes "brothers" with some fundamentalist Muslims and is slowly drawn into becoming "a Good Muslim". Mohamed Atta and others instill Ziad with a hatred of Jews and "Infidels", which leads to a desire for Jihad and martyrdom. He moves to Hamburg to study aeronautical engineering, attends an Al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan, and deceives his girlfriend and family about his involvement. He eventually attends flight school in Florida with Atta and others, waiting for and preparing for "the big wedding" (the 9/11 attack). Meanwhile, US government and law enforcement officials fail to act despite believing that a major terrorist attack is imminent, and despite noticing a number of suspicious persons involved in flight training.

Baghdad, the playground for the rich and infamous, where anything can be bought - but for a price. This is Uday Hussein's world and with his depraved lust for debauchery and immorality, he helps himself to whatever turns him on. When army lieutenant Latif Yahia is summoned to Saddam's palace, he is faced with an impossible request - to be Uday's 'fiday' - his body double, or have his family condemned to death. In a world entrenched in betrayal and corruption, knowing who to trust becomes a matter of life or death for Latif, as he battles to escape from his forced existence.