Andrew Korybko
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.
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