The Uyghur military group that helped oust Bashar-al Assad has vowed to take the war to China.
The Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) threatened Beijing in a video released on December 8, the day the Syrian regime fell, showing its fighters holding guns and wearing military fatigues.
“Now here in Syria, in all the cities here, we fight for Allah, and we will continue to do this in our Urumchi, Aqsu and Kashgar in the future,” said a masked man, listing the cities in China’s Xinjiang province, where he comes from. the hail of the Uyghurs. “We will expel the infidels from China.”
Using the name that the Uyghurs love for their homeland, he added: “We fought in Homs, in Idlib and we will continue to fight in East Turkistan.
“Allah has given us victory here. May he also give us victory in our country.
ADVICE soldiers on the Latakia coast
TIP has been based in Syria for more than a decade, with its members fleeing to the Middle East to escape China’s intense persecution of the Uyghurs, a Muslim minority group. Its fighters joined Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Islamist group that led the rebels, in forcing the withdrawal from northwestern Syria.
In recent days TIP has engaged in an unusual publicity blitz, showing its leader Abu Muhammed alongside his troops.
One video purports to show the TIP attacking Assad’s forces on the front lines in late November 2024, shortly after the launch of the rebels. One shows TIP fighters rolling into Damascus on tanks, waving bright blue flags with a constellation-and-star symbol.
Credit: arslan_hidayat/X
According to video footage, TIP fighters entered the port cities of Latakia and Tartus on December 10 and 11. Both are located near the Syrian coast and used to host Russian forces.
“Many groups have joined us. Russia came, Iran came, Hezbollah came – with powerful weapons and all kinds of soldiers,” said one man in a video on December 8. “But each time, Allah as our witness, we did not back down.
“With the help of Allah, we fought our way here. We never showed weakness or fear; we were never afraid.”
ZANO certainly had a role to play in the victory of the rebels, said Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi, an independent researcher working on the Syrian civil war.
“They were not a bigger force than other Syrian rebel groups that were helping HTS, but they were part of the attack,” he said.
In 2021, Syrian television reportedly described the group as a “faithful friend” of HTS. TIP officials have also indicated that the group is happy to support “the request of the Syrian brothers for the Assad government to leave”.
TIP has remained in Syria throughout the thirteen years of the civil war and appears to have remained independent despite ties to other parties.
The group, which was founded sometime in the 1990s with a previous presence in Afghanistan and Pakistan, has continued to express its importance as the liberation of the Uyghur, explaining the goal of “freeing the Muslims of East Turkistan from Chinese occupation”.
On December 6, as the Syrian rebel offensive continued, the Emir of the TIP, Abd Haq al-Turkistani, issued a statement confirming the group’s plan to attack China in the future.
Credit: Voice_of_Islam
“While Muslims celebrate this victory everywhere, the oppressed Muslims of East Turkistan remain far from their history as they live under a dirty, infidel occupation that oppresses them in every way,” he said.
“Through God’s support, the unbelievers in China will soon taste the pain that the unbelievers in al-Sham tasted, God willing.”
The group posted pictures on social media of blood splattering the face of Xi Jinping, the president of China.
Some videos show grievances such as the Baren Uprising in 1990, when thousands of Uyghur protesters were killed by the Chinese government, a killing that was later whitewashed by the authorities. The exact number of dead is unknown.
Rune Steenberg, an anthropologist who studies the Uyghurs at Palacky University Olomouc, said: “They see this as one step of the global jihad, when one day all Muslims will be free, and part of that will be the Muslims in East Turkistan. They are saying, ‘We are now strangers, but with God’s help, we will soon be hosts.’”
China’s crackdown on Uyghurs has seen more than a million people forced into re-education camps, with thousands imprisoned for “crimes” such as praying or fasting.
In interviews with The Telegraph, former prisoners described being beaten in solitary confinement and pledging allegiance to Xi.
Many chose to flee China by paying thousands of dollars to smugglers.
Some hoped to go abroad to learn more about their religion of Islam, a private practice banned by the government. Only state-sanctioned Qurans and state-controlled imams are accepted.
Whether TIP can plan and launch an attack on the Chinese government remains to be seen.
Beijing has repeatedly emphasized and possibly expanded the power of the TIP as a way of justifying its abuse of the Uyghurs, while some Uyghur scholars have disputed how well the group is actually united, saying it does not exist.
While TIP’s latest propaganda – set to the score of sweeping music – shows that it is real and effective, it is still unclear what their full potential is in terms of numbers, training and firepower.
China boasts the largest military in the world at 2 million strong, and has advanced weapon systems and armed drones.
But the growth of overseas investment – a core of Xi’s foreign policy – means that there are economic infrastructure and a large number of Chinese workers abroad that could be vulnerable to attack.
China may request the extradition of members of TIP, a group it says is a terrorist organization.
Its presence in Syria “will be a sticking point if the new Syrian government wants relations with China”, said Mr Jawad al-Tamimi, adding: “But if HTS gives it to them, it is a big violation of one of their principles.”
One of the founding principles of HTS, he said, is that the foreigners who joined the Syrian rebels had to be protected. In exchange, they had to promise not to use Syria as a springboard for terrorist attacks abroad.
In 2020, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, the leader of HTS, said: “These guys have been in Syria for seven years and have never threatened outside the country.
“They are only committed to protecting Idlib from the regime’s brutality.
“As Uyghurs, they face persecution in China – which we strongly condemn – and they have nowhere else to go. Yes, I sympathize with them, but their struggle in China is not ours, so we tell them that they are welcome here as long as they follow our laws – which they do.”
There is also the question of how much power the TIP will have over al-Jolani and other armed groups that have established a new regime in Damascus, said Broderick McDonald, a fellow at King’s College London’s international center for the study of radicalisation.
“There are Uyghurs and other foreign fighters who are coming out of the shadows [in propaganda videos] as they feel safe, what does it mean for what they do with the small groups, and will they try to shape the future of Syria?
There is a chance that another radical party will collapse, but for now, TIP’s lies show that this group is thankful for their reception in Syria.
In another video from December 10, a masked soldier addresses a congregation at what the group calls a mosque in Latakia.
“The Chinese government expelled us from our country, oppressed us, killed us and imprisoned us,” he said. “We left our country and came here… we saw from you all the beauty of the last ten years. We are the mujahideen of East Turkistan. “
Expand your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for three months with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.