Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Chinese fighters play key role in Syria
BEIRUT — Many don’t speak Arabic and their role in Syria is little known to the outside world, but the Chinese fighters of the Turkistan Islamic Party in Syria are organized, battle-hardened and have been instrumental in ground offensives against President Bashar Assad’s forces in the country’s northern regions.
Thousands of Chinese jihadis have gone to Syria since the country’s civil war began in March 2011 to fight against government forces and their allies. Some have joined the al-Qaida branch previously known in the country as the Nusra Front. Others paid allegiance to the Islamic State group, and a smaller number joined factions such as the ultraconservative Ahrar al-Sham.
But the majority of Chinese jihadis are with the Turkistan Islamic Party in Syria, whose vast majority are Chinese Muslims, particularly those from the Turkic-speaking Uighur majority native to Xinjiang in China. Their growing role in Syria has resulted in increased cooperation between Syrian and Chinese intelligence agencies who fear those same jihadis could one day return home and cause trouble there.
The Turkistan Islamic Party is the other name for the East Turkistan Islamic Movement, which considers China’s Xinjiang to be East Turkistan.
Like most jihadi groups in Syria, their aim is to remove Assad’s secular government from power and replace it with strict Islamic rule. Their participation in the war, which has left nearly 400,000 people dead, comes at a time when the Chinese government is one of Assad’s strongest international backers. Along with Russia, China has used its veto power at the U.N. Security Council on several occasions to prevent the imposition of international sanctions against its Arab ally.
Beijing has blamed violence at home and against Chinese targets around the world on Islamic militants with foreign connections seeking an independent state in Xinjiang. The government says some of them are fleeing the country to join the militants, although critics say the Uighurs are discriminated against and economically marginalized in their homeland and are merely seeking to escape repressive rule by the majority Han Chinese.
Abu Dardaa al-Shami, a member of the now-defunct extremist Jund al-Aqsa group, said the Turkistan Islamic Party has the best “Inghemasiyoun,” Arabic for “those who immerse themselves.” The Inghemasiyoun have been used by extremist groups such as the Islamic State and al-Qaida’s affiliate now known as Jabhat Fatah al-Sham. Their role is to infiltrate their targets, unleash mayhem and fight to the death before a major ground offensive begins.
“They are the lions of ground offensives,” said al- Shami, who fought on several occasions alongside Turkistan Islamic Party fighters in northern Syria.
Xie Xiaoyuan, China’s envoy to Syria, told reporters in November that the two countries have had normal military exchanges focused on humanitarian issues, although Chinese officials have repeatedly rejected the possibility of sending troops or weapons.
In the past year, however, Chinese and Syrian officials have begun holding regular monthly high-level meetings to share intelligence on militant movements in Syria, according to a person familiar with the matter. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to reveal military secrets.
“These people not only fight alongside international terrorist forces in Syria, but also they will possibly return to China posing threat to China’s national security,” said Li Wei, terrorism expert at China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations and director of the Institute of Security and Arms Control Studies.
Rami Abdurrahman who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said there are about 5,000 Chinese fighters in Syria, most of them with the Turkistan Islamic Party fighters in northern Syria who along with their families make about 20,000. Li, the terrorism expert, said Abdurrahman’s numbers are way too high, adding that he believes the number are about 300 Chinese fighters in Syria who brought with them about 700 family members.
“As the control of the passage along the borders between Turkey and Syria is being tightened, it is becoming more difficult for them to smuggle into Syria,” Li said.
Syrian opposition activists and pro- government media outlets say dozens of Turkistan Islamic Party fighters have carried out suicide attacks against government forces and their allies and for the past two years have led battles mostly in the north of the country.
In 2015, members of the group spearheaded an attack on the northwestern province of Idlib and captured the strategic town of Jisr al-Shughour on the edge of the Latakia region, an Assad stronghold. They reportedly damaged a church in the town and raised their black flag on top of it.
In late 2016, the Turkistan Islamic Party was a main force to briefly break a government siege on the then-rebel-held eastern parts of the northern city of Aleppo.
The role of the Chinese jihadis in Syria was a topic that Assad spoke about last month in an interview with Chinese Phoenix TV, saying “they know your country more than the others, so they can do more harm in your country than others.”