ETIM extremists attempt to terrorise China

Jan 13, 2025
URUMQI, XINJIANG, CHINA - AUG 31, 2017: Urumqi cityscape as seen from Hong Shan Pagoda in Hongshan Park Image:iStock

So many people have a concern about ETIM and following their role into Syria they are reported in many Western media outlets as “coming for China next”.

First of all, who are ETIM? The East Turkestan Islamic Movement, a Xinjiang Uyghur fundamental Muslim Extremist group, 22 of whom found themselves, without trial, tortured and imprisoned. And no, China didn’t do this, it was the US which arrested some in Afghanistan, renditioned them, illegally to Guantanamo Bay, tortured them, also illegally and then, after about 12 years, released them all. None of them returned to China, they were terrorists and were definitely wanted in China, but they made their homes in places like Albania.

So, fast forward to today and what do we know of them? Well, we know some of them are still terrorists, but now, they’re “friendly terrorists”, the US wants to use them – if that sounds familiar, it is. The US used Osama bin Laden, it used Saddam Hussein and then executed him. The US uses a lot of people that they don’t like.

Let me rephrase that, they hate some people, but still use them as convenient enemies of their enemies. The man they are now interviewing on Western media almost every day who has taken control of Syria is a wanted terrorist with a US$10 million bounty on his head, but the West courts his new woke look. But we’re not here to talk about Syria, other than as a starting point to a story where a “regiment”, if that’s the correct word for a band of wanted terrorists formed into a militia, is now based.

This regiment of East Turkestan Islamic extremists is now helping ISIS, al-Qaeda or whatever wording we want to use for the group that is now in control of what was once Syria. ETIM are terrorists,the UK still says so, the United Nations still says so and China definitely believes so.

Allow me to quote the United Nations here:

“The Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) is an organisation which has used violence to further its aim of setting up an independent so-called ‘East Turkistan’ within China. Since its establishment, ETIM has maintained close ties with the Taliban, al-Qaeda (QDe.004) and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (QDe.010). It was founded by Hasan Mahsum from Xinjiang, China, who was killed by Pakistani troops in October 2003. ETIM is currently led by Abdul Haq (QDi.268), who was also a member of Al-Qaida’s Shura Council as of 2005.”

So, we’re not dealing with people who have normal and moral rights here. Terrorists lose all their rights when the US gets hold of them; it won’t really matter what human rights organisations think, the US captures someone they think is a terrorist, and voila, that person is disappeared through renditions and torture which is made legal by changing the wording to “enhanced interrogation”. Once again,  the emphasis is, China didn’t do this, the US does it regularly.

So, the big question is, does China need to worry about this threat that is being reported in many different places, including the UK’s Daily Telegraph, the Asian Times, on Yahoo! and pretty much everywhere?

Are they coming for China next? The short answer is no.

First of all, they are a designated terrorist organisation, so travelling as a military unit would be impossible. If they attempt to legally leave the area we once knew as Syria, they would be arrested. However, we also know that many of them got there with the help of some nations offering them passports. We now know because the Times of Israel and even the BBC reported back in 2015, that China had foiled a plot to provide up to 100,000 Turkish passports to Uyghurs.

Remember that in 2015, when we read about China and Xinjiang on the BBC, it was actually relatively factual, they produced information of the terrorist attacks that ETIM had carried out, they acknowledged at that time that ETIM was a terrorist organisation, which they still are, but they somehow forget to acknowledge that these days. Many people think that because Mike Pompeo as, one of his last gestures in office, removed them from the designated State Department terrorist list, that they are no longer terrorists. The UN has not delisted them, neither has the UK; they are definitely terrorists, but they are US-friendly terrorists now.

So the idea of a “regiment of terrorists” crossing borders on their way to China is out of the question.

They could be issued with Turkish or Syrian passports to travel back to China and technically that might allow some of them to enter China and even Xinjiang. But, even that is unlikely. China has facial recognition, gait recognitions, it has biometric technology at entry ports so we all have to give our fingerprints to get into China. Anyone who has done so in the past will be immediately picked up. It’s unlikely many will get through, so travelling individually through legal channels to regroup and create any kind of major threat is highly unlikely.

What’s more, this was done before by the CIA when they trained guerrillas from Tibet in Colorado, and airdropped them into China so they could cause havoc in the Xinjiang region. They went to people they knew for assistance and were immediately handed over to the police. It was quite a failure for the CIA and this is again, not speculation or propaganda from Chinese sources, this comes from the US Department of State Archives of the Office of Government Historian. It was, for the US, an abject failure in their ongoing attempts to meddle in China.

So, they’re not coming as a military force by any legal methods, they aren’t going to get any great numbers of people through legal channels by illegal or false passports and, if they did get any in it’s likely they would be exposed by locals as troublemakers and end up in Chinese prisons. Leaving only one other method, they could travel overland from Syria into Xinjiang and there’s only two countries separating Syria from Xinjiang. Unfortunately, neither of these countries is likely to offer any help.

First of all, they’d need to cross Iran. Iran is a member of the Shanghai Co-operation Agreement which has a charter to help prevent terrorism or terrorist activities between members and other nations. If they were able to pass through Iran, they’d need to enter Afghanistan and it’s extremely unlikely that the Taliban are going to co-operate with them, they know what co-operation with the US means and they would know the consequences of harming China, which is one of the few countries currently helping them (through the BRI). After almost 40 years of constant war, China is helping Afghanistan use its own resources and lift itself out of poverty. Afghanistan, we can be sure, enjoys this new-found stability and trade with China a lot more than the US would like it to.

People worried about what’s happening in Syria and how it will affect Xinjiang, or how ETIM terrorists might have some kind of “comeback”, can stop worrying. Two things we know China is very good at are: collecting intelligence which affects China’s homeland; and defending China’s borders.

ETIM resurging as a terrorist organisation and making threats towards China is nothing more than euphoric optimism after having experienced a win in a country plagued with various terrorist groups and getting multi-national support. Taking on the People’s Liberation Army or the People’s Armed Police will be a different game altogether, especially when we can be assured that China’s Ministry of State Security and their Military Intelligence will already know this.

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