note n°07/2017 2 March 2017 Antoine Vagneur-Jones Research Fellow, Fondation pour la recherche stratégique War and opportunity: the Turkistan Islamic Party and the Syrian conflict Abstract rorist measures, a military campaign has The Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), a largely been launched in TIP’s old Pakistani Uyghur jihadi movement advocating the stomping grounds and Turkey’s support for independence of the Chinese province of Uyghur separatism has diminished. Yet, in Xinjiang, has become embroiled in the Syrian the face of such hurdles, TIP’s involvement in civil war. Having long been active in Syria shows how jihadi groups can Pakistan’s tribal areas, the group has knitted strengthen their networks and raise their close ties to al-Qaeda and the Islamic Emirate international profile by waging war abroad. of Afghanistan (previously known as the Taliban). Most of its combatants in Syria Résumé fight under Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, a jihadi Prônant l’indépendance de la province organisation which controls large swathes of chinoise du Xinjiang, le Parti islamique du territory in the country’s northwestern Turkestan (TIP), groupe djihadiste majori- regions. From deploying troops in northern tairement composé de combattants ouïghours, Latakia to participating in the battle for s’est immiscé dans la guerre civile syrienne. Aleppo, TIP has combined its military com- Longtemps actif dans les régions tribales du mitment to the Syrian conflict with consistent Pakistan, le mouvement a noué des liens efforts to publicise its activities online. But a étroits avec Al-Qaïda ainsi que l’Émirat isla- number of developments threaten TIP’s exis- mique d’Afghanistan (antérieurement connu tence. China has strengthened its antiter- sous le nom des Talibans). La plupart de ses fighters published by the Soufan Group paid combattants en Syrie luttent sous la houlette them little heed 3. This is likely due to the de Jabhat Fatah Al-Sham, organisation djiha- methodological difficulties encountered in diste qui contrôle de vastes pans de territoire analyzing their presence in Syria, stemming dans le nord-ouest du pays. Ayant déployé ses from both a lack of reliable statistics as to their troupes dans le Nord de Lattaquié et participé numbers and paucity of sources regarding à la bataille pour Alep, le TIP a su conjuguer their activities on the ground. Yet the breadth son engagement militaire envers le conflit of their operations across multiple governo- syrien à des efforts soutenus en vue de média- rates, alongside the fact that there are more tiser ses activités en ligne. Un certain nombre Muslims in their native province in China than de développements menacent cependant la there are in Tunisia (and twice as many as in pérennité même du TIP : la Chine a renforcé Jordan) 4, renders their presence worthy of sa politique anti-terroriste, une campagne note. militaire a été lancée dans son ancien terrain Composed of Uyghurs hailing from China’s d’opérations au Pakistan et le soutien de la Xinjiang province, TIP’s combatants have Turquie pour le séparatisme ouïghour s’est vu played an active role on a number of fronts, réduit. Face à de tels obstacles, la présence du having played an instrumental part in the TIP en Syrie démontre néanmoins comment 2015 Idlib offensive against regime forces les groupes djihadistes parviennent à renfor- before taking part in heavy fighting in nor- cer leurs réseaux tout en accroissant leur thern Latakia and Aleppo in late 2016 5. The notoriété sur le plan international. group’s arrival in Syria has notably allowed it to foster connections with a range of jihadi ~ ~ ~ ~ movements under Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (JFS, formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra). While US airstrikes and regime forces zeroing in on Having lost control of all borders bar that Idlib-based rebel groups, Turkey has come shared with Lebanon, the Syrian government under increasing Chinese pressure to take a has been unable to stem the inflow of fighters hard stance on Uyghur separatism. TIP’s fate arriving from abroad. Despite its domestic thus hangs in the balance. That said, and roots – and the fact that groups fighting the despite the fact that, in the wider scheme of regime remain predominantly made up of things, its contribution to the conflict cannot Syrians – the Syrian civil war has attracted be said to be more than marginal, TIP’s enga- large numbers of foreign fighters, diverse in gement in the Syrian theatre has raised its both their motivations and origins. In May profile in jihadi circles and widened its net- 2016, the head of the United Nations’ Counter work. This increases the probability that it will -Terrorism Committee claimed that just under continue to engage in transnational jihadi 30,000 international combatants were present activity well beyond the civil war’s conclusion. in both Syria and Iraq 1. Many of the conflict’s most powerful actors rely on their presence – they are thought to make up over half of IS’ Uyghur separatism and the rank and file 2. Responding to widespread emergence of TIP consternation regarding the threat of domestic Uyghurs are native to the Xinjiang Uyghur attacks by returning jihadi fighters, Western Autonomous Region (XUAR), a Chinese pro- media and academics have largely focused on vince in the country’s northwest, conquered by combatants stemming from European coun- the Qing dynasty in 1759. A Turkic, largely tries as well as fighters arriving from Arab Sunni ethnic group, China’s Uyghurs number states (Tunisia and Jordan have received par- over 11 million, constituting around 0.8% of ticular attention). the country’s population 6. As a whole, their Recent scholarship has, however, broadly 3. Richard Barrett et al, “Foreign Fighters: An Updated overlooked the role of Chinese nationals of Assessment on the Flow of Foreign Fighters into Syria Uyghur extraction fighting for the Syrian wing and Iraq”, The Soufan Group , Dec 2015. of Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), one of the 4. DV Buyarov et al, “Demographic Situation in only large, unified and non-Arab muhajireen Xinjiang-Uigur Autonomous Area in the Last Quarter (jihadi foreign fighter) groups fighting the of the Twentieth Century”, Global Media Journal , 24 Syrian regime. A much-cited report on foreign June 2016. 5. Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi, “The Factions of North 1. Cynthia Koet, “UN: 30,000 foreign fighters in Syria Latakia”, Syria Comment , 10 Dec 2015. and Iraq”, Politico , 7 Nov 2016. 6. Yitzhak Shichor, “See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak 2. Zachary Laub, “The Islamic State”, Council on No Evil: Middle Eastern Reactions to Rising China’s Foreign Relations , 10 Aug 2016. 2 living standards are significantly lower than in vince’s northeast, are treated more leniently most Han-majority provinces. Tuition and than those of such southern cities as Kashgar school fees, poor job prospects and language by virtue of their historical lack of resistance policies that place those with a poor grasp of to Chinese rule 13 . As a result, attitudes among Mandarin at a disadvantage have all contri- Uyghur communities towards Chinese rule, as buted to low levels of attainment at Uyghur well as the degree to which various entities schools 7. In addition, tensions abound regar- identify with pan-Turkism or to the wider ding relations with the central government, Islamic ummah , differ throughout the pro- with human rights groups deploring instances vince. Referring to the minority of Uyghurs of religious repression and heavy-handed actively seeking to secede from China, Van counter-terrorism initiatives 8. Targeting vio- Wie Davis of the Asia-Pacific Center for lent extremism and terrorism, the most recent Security Studies stresses that there is “no series of “strike hard” operations, launched by single Uyghur agenda”, the goals of such the Chinese government in May 2014, has groups running the gamut from being granted been particularly criticized by advocacy orga- a greater degree of autonomy with China to nisations 9. Allegations – much-publicised by establishing a separate state 14 . both international human rights groups as Founded in 2006 in the Af-Pak border region well as Uyghur jihadis – range from the impo- by Uyghurs who had fled from China in the sition of restrictions on fasting to incidents of 1990s 15 , TIP’s leadership has always been 10 extrajudicial torture . Penn State University’s based outside of Xinjiang. While the organi- Kiliç Buğra Kanat bemoans the absence of an sation’s genesis remains unclear, the Chinese effective communications mechanism between government describes the group as a new the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and manifestation of what it referred to as the East Uyghurs, arguing that it prevents the emer- Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), to gence of any form of dialogue between the two which it has attributed over 200 attacks bet- 11 parties . ween 1990 and 2001 16 . Yet doubt has been cast Although a number of Uyghur separatist cells on the link between TIP and ETIM. Cited by are active across the province, the degree to the Council for Foreign Relations, Omer which a single, overarching separatist move- Kanat, senior editor of Radio Free Asia’s ment can be said to be active across Xinjiang Uyghur service, argues that TIP may have in has been called into question. Most separatists fact developed as an offshoot of the Islamic call for the creation of “East Turkistan”, whose Party of Turkistan, renamed from the Islamic territory would encompass the XUAR’s, Movement of Uzbekistan 17 , a jihadi movement roughly approximating that claimed by past active in the Pakistan’s Federally Administe- attempts to found an independent state. While red Tribal Areas (FATA) region which, suppor- the “First East Turkistan Republic” proved ted by bin Laden’s training facilities and seed little more than a flash in the pan, collapsing a funding, emerged during the Afghanistan few months after being declared in November War 18 .