Uyghur separatist threat could reach beyond China’s Xinjiang

The rapid collapse of the Syrian Arab Army in the face of the advance of Turkish-backed Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which the UN Security Council has identified as a terrorist group, has drawn attention to the foreign fighters within their ranks.

First and foremost among those foreign fighters are the Uyghurs from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. They used to fight China as part of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement but rebranded as the Turkistan Islamic Party some years back.

Regardless of whichever name they go by, the group has been involved in Idlib since 2017, when reports began circulating about its colonies in that corner of Syria. The organization has a history of collaborating with terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda in support of the quest to carve out a Uyghur state from China. That’s why it was designated as a terrorist group by the UN Security Council. The United States removed its own such designation in late 2020 giving the reason that the group had become inactive, but now it’s known that this wasn’t true.

Members of the group just released a video from Syria calling for militant jihad against China. Yang Xiaotong contributed a detailed Asia Times piece on this subject under the title “China has cause to be terrified of rebel-run Syria.” Two of the most important points are that the Turkistan Islamic Party is recruiting members from Central Asia and that it could reestablish itself in Afghanistan to carry out attacks against the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

The corridor is considered to be the Belt and Road Initiative’s flagship project, and for years it’s been the target of attacks by the Balochistan Liberation Army, which Pakistan, China and even the US have designated as a terrorist organization. The BLA has ramped up its attacks since the Afghan Taliban reconquered Afghanistan and gave sanctuary to the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan.

The Balochistan Liberation Army and the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan are now considered to be informal allies. Both seek to damage the Pakistani state: BLA wants to carve out an independent Balochistan while the TTP wants to impose a radical Islamic dictatorship.

Some also suspect that the Afghan Taliban would demand the cession of Pakistan’s TTP-run, Pashtun-majority Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the Northwest Frontier Province) as compensation for support in bringing the TTP to power, since there is no Afghan Taliban recognition of the Durand Line.

The Afghan Taliban have positive relations with China, so they might not welcome the Turkistan Islamic Party to Afghanistan. The problem, though, is that the Afghan Taliban don’t have full control over their territory – as is proven by the continued existence of ISIS-K cells there. They also previously hosted the Turkistan Islamic Party in accord with the principle of providing sanctuary to all like-minded Muslim groups with the request that the groups don’t threaten others.

It’s therefore possible that the Turkistan Islamic Party could re-establish itself in Afghanistan with or without the Afghan Taliban. From there, it could attack the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor just as the partially Afghan-based Balochistan Liberation Army has been doing.

Whereas the Balochistan Liberation Army attacks the corridor for ultra-nationalist reasons, claiming that the megaproject exploits the native Baloch by depriving them of the riches derived from their region’s natural resource wealth, it can’t be ruled out that the Turkistan Islamic Party might opportunistically want to hit China’s soft spot, simply in order to raise the organization’s profile.

Beyond attacking Pakistani-based Belt and Road projects, such opportunistic motivation could also find relevance in Central Asia. From there, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham also has sourced some of its foreign fighters – namely Uzbeks, who are the region’s most populous people.

There are Uyghur communities in Kazakhstan and in perennially unstable Kyrgyzstan from which the Turkistan Islamist Party could find recruits – whether to carry out attacks against Belt and Road projects there or in Pakistan, attacks across the border in Xinjiang or training in Afghanistan or Syria.

These credible possibilities show that the Turkistan Islamist Party threatens more than just China’s Xinjiang, and they raise questions about Turkiye’s indirect sponsorship of the party via Ankara’s tacit acceptance of the Turkistan Islamists’ alliance with the Turkish-backed Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (commonly abbreviated HTS), the group that just conquered Syria.

Turkiye considers itself to be the leader of the Organization of Turkish States, which includes Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, yet those countries’ nationals – especially Uzbeks – have now received training from HTS and obtained relevant battlefield experience in Syria under HTS supervision. It will be difficult for Turkiye to present itself as a reliable partner for those ‘stans when it has allowed some of their citizens to metastasize into potential terrorist threats without lifting a finger to stop them.

Another factor for observers to keep in mind is the role of Ukraine’s GUR military intelligence agency. The Washington Post reported that GUR played a role in HTS’s blitz across Syria. Kyiv had earlier supported Tuareg militants against Wagner in Mali and had supported the Sudanese Armed Forces against the allegedly Wagner-backed Rapid Support Forces in Sudan before that, so its backing of HTS isn’t surprising. Nevertheless, the contemporary GUR is also a CIA project, as the Washington Post reported in late 2023.  

The possibility thus arises of the CIA using GUR as a plausibly deniable proxy for managing or at least encouraging the Turkistan Islamist Party’s expansion to the geostrategic Central Asian region between Russia and China. This could occur even if Turkiye is against it. Ankara could preemptively avert that scenario by using its influence over HTS to crack down on the Turkistan Islamist Party inside Syria by demilitarizing and demobilizing its armed formations. Some Uyghurs could also be deported to China.

Of course, that would require tremendous political will, which Turkiye might not have at present. President Recep Tayyip Erodgan has presented himself as a champion of the Uyghurs’ political cause in times past, but he’s toned down such rhetoric in recent years out of pragmatism to improve ties with China. He might thus be accused of betrayal by some of the Islamists from his domestic base, not to mention those abroad who support his Islamist-driven foreign policy – hence his possible reluctance.

If he doesn’t take decisive action now, even if only to the extent of containing the Turkistan Islamist Party within Syria and not allowing other Uyghurs, Central Asians or Chechens to travel there via Turkiye for training with that group or HTS, then he might soon find himself with a major problem on his hands that could harm his foreign policy. After all, those people traveled to Syria for training and battlefield experience with the tacit support of his country, so Erdogan is ultimately to blame in part for whatever future attacks they might carry out.

Pakistan is one of Turkiye’s close partners. Thus it will be extremely scandalous if Syrian-based Uyghurs eventually make their way to Afghanistan to wage hybrid war on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which is also envisaged as the foundation for Pakistan’s future economic development.

Whether the Turkistan Islamists do so on their own or in collusion with the CIA-sponsored GUR is beside the point since Turkiye will still be partially responsible. Russia, China, the Central Asian republics, and Pakistan are therefore watching very closely to see what Erdogan will do.