Turkistan Islamic Party
The Turkistan Islamic Party or Turkistan Islamic Movement, formerly known as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement and other names, is an Islamic extremist organization founded by Uyghur jihadists in Western China, considered broadly as a terrorist group. Its stated goals are to establish an independent state called "East Turkestan" in Xinjiang. According to a Chinese report, published in 2002, between 1990 and 2001 the ETIM had committed over 200 acts of terrorism, resulting in at least 162 deaths and over 440 injuries. The UN Security Council Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee has listed ETIM as a terrorist organization since 2002.
Likely inspired by the success of the mujahideen against the Soviets, the TIP became prominent in April 1990 during the Baren Township riot. The conflict took the form of a jihad which envisioned a similar result to the earlier creation of the First East Turkestan Republic. Their slogans contained anti-Communist rhetoric and calls for uniting Turks, indicating a movement akin to Islamic pan-Turkism historically congruent with southern Xinjiang rather than pure, radical Salafi jihadism or religious extremism. The revolt lasted several days and was put down by the CCP, who deployed significant forces to suppress the insurrection. The CCP viewed them as a jihadist movement akin to the mujahideen in Afghanistan across the border which gave birth to more radical movements such as the Party of Allah and the Islamic Movement of East Turkistan.
Since the September 11 attacks, the group has been designated as a terrorist organization by China, the European Union, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Russia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States, in addition to the United Nations. Its Syrian branch Turkistan Islamic Party in Syria is active in the Syrian Civil War.
History
Abdul Hameed, Abdul Azeez Makhdoom, and Abdul Hakeem Makhdoom launched the Islamic Party of Turkistan in 1940. After being set free from prison in 1979, Abdul Hakeem instructed Hasan Mahsum and other Uyghurs in fundamentalist Islam.In 1989 Ziyauddin Yusuf started the group which was originally called East Turkistan Islamic Party. The name in Uyghur was Sherqiy Türkistan Islam Partiyisi, and in Turkish it was called Doğu Türkistan İslam Partisi. The movement was reshuffled by Hasan Mahsum and Abudukadir Yapuquan in 1997 into its present incarnation. This group was referred to as "East Turkestan Islamic Movement" by the Chinese government but the group itself never used that name. In 1998 Mahsum moved ETIM's headquarters to Kabul, taking shelter under Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. The Chinese government alleges that Mahsum met with leaders of al-Qaeda and the Taliban including Osama bin Laden in 1999 in Afghanistan to coordinate actions, though Mahsum denied this. There, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement dropped the "East" from its name as it increased its domain. The group's infrastructure was crippled after the United States invaded Afghanistan and bombed Al Qaeda bases in the mountainous regions along the border with Pakistan, after which the leader of ETIM, Hasan Mahsum, was killed by a Pakistani raid on an Al-Qaeda camp in 2003.
However, ETIM resurged after the Iraq War inflamed mujaheddin sentiment. The United States Department of State has yet to fully list it as a foreign terrorist organization under Title 8 of the United States Code Section 1189, though the United States Department of the Treasury has blocked the property and prohibited transactions with the terrorist organization according to Executive Order 13224 and the State Department has blocked its members for immigration purpose. In 2006, ETIM circulated a video calling for a renewed jihad, and took advantage of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing to gain publicity for its attacks. The ETIM is said to be allied with the Pakistani Taliban prompting China to urge Pakistan to take action against the militants.
The new organization called itself the Turkistan Islamic Party and abandoned usage of the name ETIM, although China still calls it by the name ETIM and refuses to acknowledge it as TIP. The Turkistan Islamic Party was originally subordinated to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan but then split off and declared its name as TIP and started making itself known by promoting itself with its Islamic Turkistan magazine and Voice of Islam media in Chinese, Arabic, Russian, and Turkish in order to reach out to global jihadists. Control over the Uyghur and Uzbek militants was transferred to the Pakistani Taliban from the Afghan Taliban after 2001, so violence against the militant's countries of origins can no longer restrained by the Afghan Taliban since the Pakistani Taliban does not have a stake in doing so.
TIP's Ṣawt al-Islām media arm releases video messages. The full name of their media center is "Turkistan Islamic Party Voice of Islam Media Center" Uyghur:.
Al-Qaeda links
The TIP are believed to have links to al-Qaeda and affiliated groups such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, and the Pakistani Taliban. Philip B. K. Potter writes that despite the fact that "throughout the 1990s, Chinese authorities went to great lengths to publicly link organizations active in Xinjiang—particularly the ETIM—to al-Qaeda the best information indicates that prior to 2001, the relationship included some training and funding but relatively little operational cooperation." Meanwhile, specific incidents were downplayed by Chinese authorities as isolated criminal acts. However, in 1998 the group's headquarters were moved to Kabul, in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, while "China’s ongoing security crackdown in Xinjiang has forced the most militant Uyghur separatists into volatile neighboring countries, such as Pakistan," Potter writes, "where they are forging strategic alliances with, and even leading, jihadist factions affiliated with al-Qaeda and the Taliban." The East Turkestan Islamic Movement dropped "East" from its name as it increased its domain. The U.S. State Department have listed them as a terrorist organisation since 2002, and as having received "training and financial assistance" from al-Qaeda.A number of members of al-Qaeda have expressed support for the TIP, Xinjiang independence, and/or jihad against China. They include Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, Abu Yahya al-Libi, and current al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri who has on multiple occasions issued statements naming Xinjiang as one of the "battlegrounds" of "jihad to liberate every span of land of the Muslims that has been usurped and violated." Additionally, the al-Qaeda aligned al-Fajr Media Center distributes TIP promotional material.
Andrew McGregor, writing for the Jamestown Foundation, notes that "though there is no question a small group of Uyghur militants fought alongside their Taliban hosts against the Northern Alliance the scores of terrorists Beijing claimed that Bin Laden was sending to China in 2002 never materialized" and that "the TIP’s "strategy" of making loud and alarming threats without any operational follow-up has been enormously effective in promoting China's efforts to characterize Uyghur separatists as terrorists."
TIP member Abdul Haq al Turkistani joined al-Qaeda's executive leadership council in 2005 and TIP member Abdul Shakoor Turkistani was appointed its military commander of its forces in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Abdul Haq was so apparently highly placed in al-Qaeda leadership that he served as a mediator between rival Taliban factions and played an integral role in military planning.
The Uyghurs East Turkestan independence movement was endorsed in the serial "Islamic Spring"'s 9th release by Ayman Al-Zawahiri, the chief of Al-Qaeda. Zawahiri confirmed that the Afghanistan war after 9/11 included the participation of Uighurs and that the jihadists like Zarwaqi, Bin Ladin and the Uighur Hasan Mahsum were provided with refuge together in Afghanistan under Taliban rule.
As clarified by TIP head Abdul Haq, the Turkistan Islamic Party is allied to Al-Qaeda.
Afghanistan and Waziristan
During the Battle of Kunduz in Afghanistan, foreign Islamist militants of Uyghur, Chechen, Rohingya, Kyrgyz, Tajik, and Uzbek ethnicity joined the Taliban in their attack.Syria
TIP sent the "Turkistan Brigade", also known as the Turkistan Islamic Party in Syria to take part in the Syrian Civil War, most noticeably in the 2015 Jisr al-Shughur offensive. Al-Qaeda linked groups in Syria include the Syrian branch of the Chechen Caucasus Emirate, Uzbek militants, and the Turkistan Islamic Party.Ideology
The NEFA Foundation, an American terrorist analyst foundation, translated and released a jihad article from ETIM, whose membership it said consisted primarily of "Uyghur Muslims from Western China." The East Turkestan Islamic Movement's primary goal is the independence of East Turkestan. ETIM continues this theme of contrasting "Muslims" and "Chinese", in a six-minute video in 2008, where "Commander Seyfullah" warns Muslims not to bring their children to the 2008 Summer Olympics, and also saying "do not stay on the same bus, on the same train, on the same plane, in the same buildings, or any place the Chinese are".Structure
In October 2008, the Chinese Ministry of Public Security released a list of eight terrorists linked to ETIM, including some of the leadership, with detailed charges. They are:| Name | Aliases | Charges | Whereabouts |
| Memet Amin Memet | Abdul Haq | Leading the organization, inciting ethnic tensions in 2006 and 2007, buying explosives, organizing terrorist attacks against the 2008 Summer Olympics | Thought to have been killed in North Waziristan drone attack Resurfaced in 2014 |
| Emeti Yakuf | Abu Abdurehman, Sayfullah, Abdul Jabar | Threatening to use biological and chemical weapons against servicepeople and Western politicians for the 2008 Olympics, disseminating manuals on explosives and poisons | Killed in North Waziristan drone attack |
| Memetituersun Yiming | Abdul Ali | Raised funds for ETIM, tested bombs in the run-up to the Olympics | Since 2008, Western Asia |
| Memetituersun Abuduhalike | Metursun Abduxaliq, Ansarul, Najmuddin | Attacked government organizations, money laundering for ETIM operations, buying vehicles and renting houses for attacks | Unknown |
| Xiamisidingaihemaiti Abudumijiti | Sayyid | Recruiting for ETIM in the Middle East, blew up a Chinese supermarket | Unknown |
| Aikemilai Wumaierjiang | Assisted Xiamisidingaihemaiti Abudumijiti in the supermarket attack | Unknown | |
| Yakuf Memeti | Abdujalil Ahmet, Abdullah, Punjab | Sneaked into China illegally to gather information on Chinese neighborhoods, a failed suicide attack against oil refinery | Killed in North Waziristan drone attack |
| Tuersun Toheti | Mubather, Nurullah | Organizing a terror team for the 2008 Olympics, buying raw materials for them and requesting chemical formulas for explosives | Killed in North Waziristan drone attack |
Guantanamo Bay detainees
The United States captured 22 Uyghur militants from combat zones in Afghanistan in 2006 on information that they were linked to Al-Qaeda. They were imprisoned without trial for five to seven years, where they testified that they were trained by ETIM leader Abdul Haq, at an ETIM training camp. After being found No Longer Enemy Combatant, i.e. never having been enemy combatants, a panel of judges ordered them released into the United States. Despite the alarm of politicians that the release of embittered former Guantanamo detainees into the United States was unsafe and illegal, they could not be released back to China because of its human rights record.Attacks
- Uyghur Islamists on 25 February 1997 in Urumqi committed bus bombings. Responsibility for the attacks was claimed and acknowledged by factions of certain diaspora Uyghurs.
- In Beijing's Xidan, a bus bomb killed two people on 7 March 1997 and Uyghur separatists boasted that they were behind the attack. The participation of Uyghurs in the bus bombing was dismissed by the Chinese government even while the Turkey-based "Organisation for East Turkistan Freedom" boasted to committing the attack. Violent attacks were carried out by Turkey, Afghanistan, and Central Asian based groups.
- In 2007, ETIM militants in cars shot Chinese nationals in Pakistani Balochistan and sent a videotape of the attack to Beijing, in retaliation for an execution of an ETIM official earlier that July.
- ETIM also took credit for a spate of attacks before the 2008 Summer Olympics, including a series of bus bombings in Kunming, an attempted plane hijacking in Urumqi, and an attack on paramilitary troops in Kashgar that killed 17 officers.
- In 2010 responsibility for attacks in China was claimed by the Turkistan Islamic Party.
- On 29 June 2010, a court in Dubai convicted two members of an ETIM cell of plotting to bomb a government-owned shopping mall that sold Chinese goods. This was the first ETIM plot outside of China or Central Asia. The key plotter was recruited during Hajj and was flown to Waziristan to train.
- In July 2010, officials in Norway interrupted a terrorist bomb plot, another instance of ETIM branching out of its original regions and cooperating with international groups. New York Times correspondent Edward Wong says that ETIM "give them a at a time when the Chinese government has... defused any chance of a widespread insurgency... in Xinjiang."
- Several attacks in 2011 in Xinjiang were claimed by the Turkistan Islamic Party.
- In October 2013, a suicide attack in Tiananmen Square caused 5 deaths and 38 injuries. Chinese police described it as the first terrorist attack in Beijing's recent history. Turkistan Islamic Party later claimed responsibility for the attack.
- In March 2014, a group of knife-wielding terrorists attacked passengers at the Kunming's railway station resulting in 31 civilians dead and +140 injured. No group stepped forward to claim responsibility, However Xinhua News Agency and government of Kunming said that the attack had been linked to TIP.
- In b/w July–December 2014, large scale riots, bombings, arson and knife attacks lead to the deaths over 183 people and left dozens injured. Most of these attackers/rioters were either inspired by or were linked to TIP.
- On 18 September 2015 in Aksu, a group of knife-wielding terrorists attacked sleeping workers at a coalmine and killed 50 of them. The Turkistan Islamic Party claimed responsibility for the attack.
- On 30 August 2016, TIP militants from Syria struck Chinese Embassy in Krygzstan with a suicide bombing. The attack left few Krygz staffers injured.
- On 28 December 2016, TIP inspired militants attacked a government office in Karakax county, attackers drove an explosive laden vehicle and denoted it in the yard of the building and then killed 2 people in a knife attack. All the assailants were then killed by the police.
- On 14 February 2017, 3 TIP inspired knife-wielding attackers killed 5 people in Pishan county. Attackers were then killed by police.
Analysis
On 16 June 2009, Representative Bill Delahunt convened hearings to examine how organizations were added to the US blacklist in general, and how the ETIM was added in particular. Uyghur expert Sean Roberts testified that the ETIM was new to him, that it wasn't until it was blacklisted that he heard of the group, and claimed that "it is perfectly reasonable to assume that the organization no longer exists at all." The Congressional Research Service reported that the first published mention of the group was in the year 2000, but that China attributed attacks to it that had occurred up to a decade earlier.
Stratfor has noted repeated unexplained attacks on Chinese buses in 2008 have followed a history of ETIM targeting Chinese infrastructure, and noted the group's splintering and subsequent reorganization following the death of Mahsum.
Intelligence analysts J. Todd Reed and Diana Raschke acknowledge that reporting in China presents obstacles not found in countries where information is not so tightly controlled. However, they found that ETIM's existence and activities could be confirmed independently of Chinese government sources, using information gleaned from ETIM's now-defunct website, reports from human rights groups and academics, and testimony from the Uyghur detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Reed & Raschke also question the information put out by Uyghur expatriates that deny ETIM's existence or impact, as the Uyghurs who leave Xinjiang are those who object most to government policy, are unable to provide first-hand analysis, and have an incentive to exaggerate repression and downplay militancy. They say that ETIM was "obscure but not unknown" before the September 11 attacks, citing "Western, Russian, and Chinese media sources" that have "documented the ETIM's existence for nearly 20 years".
Nick Holdstock, in a New York Times interview claimed that no organization is taking responsibility for attacks in Xinjiang, and that there is not enough proof to blame any organization for the attacks, that most "terrorism" there is "unsubstantiated", and that posting internet videos online is the only thing done by the "vague and shadowy" ETIM. Wall Street Journal claimed that Al-Qaeda was not connected to Uyghurs and claimed that no attacks were performed by ETIM. French journalist Ursula Gauthier claimed that the ETIM is currently not classified as terrorist by the USA approvingly cited people who called into question whether it is real, suggesting that they are wrongly being blamed by China for violent attacks and she claimed "probably" "abuse, injustice, expropriation" of Uighurs justified retribution in the form of mass slaughter at a coal mine. The "Doğu Türkistan Bülteni Haber Ajansı" which supports the TIP, cited a Reuters article which claimed that Uyghurs are viewed as terrorists in China. The "Doğu Türkistan Bülteni Haber Ajansı" praised a TIP member, Hamza, who joined the Turkistan Islamic Party as one of the "mujahideen" fighting in Khorasan on 15 December 2006 and returned to Kashgar to participate in the 2011 Kashgar attacks in which he was killed, citing from a Human Rights Watch report which praised Hamza.
Lebanese American political scientist and Al Akhbar columnist As'ad AbuKhalil slammed and criticized western media for not reporting on the massive Turkistan Islamic Party inghimasi participation in the Aleppo offensive since it goes against their agenda. He criticized Charles Lister, Fabrice Balanche and New York Times reporter Roger Cohen for this. The Long War Journal confirmed that Al Qaeda affiliated Uyghur Turkistan Islamic Party Jihadists fought in Aleppo. A suicide bomber who blows up after using up all his conventional weapons first is an inghimasi.
David Volodzko admitted that the Al-Qaeda allied Uyghur Turkistan Islamic Party was fighting in Syria, and refuted and disproved the claims that Uyghurs were not in Syria made by "The Sydney Morning Herald", the Daily Mail, and Bernstein's article in the New York Review of Books. Muhanad Hage Ali wrote an exposé on Uyghur Turkistan Islamic Party jihadists in Syria.
Andrew McGregor wrote about the Turkistan Islamic Party's presence in North Waziristan. The Uighur fighters were praised by Zawahiri, the leader of Al-Qaeda before a Turkistan Islamic Party performed the Bishkek bombing on 30 August. The Turkistan Islamic Party slammed and attacked Assad, Russia, NATO, the United States and other western countries in its propaganda outlets like the "Islamic Turkestan" magazine and its Telegram channel.