Are Uighur Militants Seduced by Jihadist Ideology?

Posted by on Oct 23, 2014 in Blog | 0 comments

This International Business Times article is both right and wrong about the inroads that radical jihadists are making in Xinjiang as a number of in-depth Chinese media exposes readily indicate.

http://www.ibtimes.com/al-qaeda-wants-xinjiang-islamic-caliphate-uighur-leaders-say-no-1710279

It’s right on the mark regarding Al Qaeda’s propaganda and disinformation offensive on Xinjiang portraying the central government’s policies as wholly oppressive against Islam and the Uighurs:

“The first issue of Resurgence, an English-language magazine produced by a media wing of al Qaeda, As-Sahab, includes an article about the Islamic community in East Turkistan, as they call the territory the Chinese call Xinjiang, titled “Did You Know? 10 Facts About East Turkistan.” As pointed out by the South China Morning Post of Hong Kong, the article features many inaccuracies about the area and China’s rule over it to further their belief that the Muslim religion and its followers are threatened by Han Chinese. For example, it claims that teaching the Quran is illegal in China, when in fact China recognizes Islam as one of the country’s five official religions. Though restrictions have been put on government officials practicing Islam, the country does not have a blanket ban on practicing the religion…”

But, the article is way off when it cites the president of the US based Uyghur American Association who suggests that extremist jihadi literature has had little impact in Xinjiang.  In fact, over the recent past, a number of perpetrators of mass violence influenced by extremist propaganda have launched indiscriminate attacks, sometimes fairly large scale, on innocent civilians, Uighur, Han, Hui, and other ethnic minorities included, along with police constabularies in several Xinjiang counties and cities, plus a farmer’s market in provincial capital Urumqi and at the Kunming (capital of southwest Yunnan province) Train Station.

A small minority of disgruntled Uighur youth, especially hailing from the poverty-stricken southwestern Xinjiang, have been targeted by Al Qaeda and other extremist groups for indoctrination and recruitment.  Radical Uighurs have been captured by US and allied forces in Afghanistan and sent to Guantanamo (then later released to third countries) and have travelled to as far as Indonesia for terrorist training (see a previous post).  Most ominous is that Chinese nationals recently caught by Iraqi forces point to a number of Chinese youths, Uighur or otherwise, joining ISIS and other radical Islamist groups.  The Chinese Foreign Ministry estimates that at least a hundred Chinese nationals are now fighting for ISIS.