Conscious of a conflict close to home (5)
I believe the answer is:
aware
'conscious of' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'a conflict close to home' is the wordplay.
'conflict' becomes 'war' (war is a kind of conflict).
'close to' says to take the final letters (the close/ending of).
The final letter of 'home' is 'e'.
'a'+'war'+'e'='AWARE'
(Other definitions for aware that I've seen before include "Cognizant" , "Cognisant, mindful" , "Conscious, sentient" , "Alert, conscious of" , "Apprised or informed" .)