The US removed the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) from its list of terrorist organizations on October 20th, a move that was made public on Thursday. The ETIM is a Uyghur Muslim group that was designated as a terrorist organization due to its suspected links to al-Qaeda in 2002.
On Friday, China criticized the US for its decision to remove ETIM from the terror list. Beijing says the group was behind a series of terror attacks in Xinjiang and in other parts of China, including a 2013 attack on Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) took credit for the 2013 Tiananmen Square attack, which is believed to be the same group as the ETIM.
A State Department official told Radio Free Asia that the group was removed from the terror list because, “for more than a decade, there has been no credible evidence that ETIM continues to exist.”
Notably, in February 2018, the US launched airstrikes in Afghanistan’s remote Badakhshan, which is close to the border of Tajikistan and Xinjiang. Military officials said they targeted members of the Taliban and the ETIM.
The Washington Post reported on the US airstrike on the ETIM in 2018. The Post said the area that was targeted is “home to members of both the Taliban and a separatist group that is known as both the East Turkestan Islamic Movement and the Turkistan Islamic Party.”
A US military official spoke with the Post about the airstrikes. “Anybody that is an enemy of Afghanistan, we’re going to target them,” Air Force Brig. Gen. Lance R. Bunch said. “We’ve got new authorities now that allow us to be able to … target the Taliban and the ETIM where they previously thought they were safe.” President Trump loosened the rules of engagement for the military in Afghanistan in 2017.
Since 2013, thousands of Uyghur fighters from the TIP have been fighting alongside al-Qaeda affiliates in Syria. Today, Uyghurs are embedded in Syria’s Idlib province, aligned with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the al-Qaeda affiliate that controls most of the province.
We say what we want whenever we will. We bomb whom we want and kill whom we kill. We are the USA. Watch what we do, not what we say.
and dont forget it !!!!
Like all rebel mercenaries before them the US will now side with the ETIM and start to use them to destabilize China. Hey, it’s worked before, right. This one is simple to unravel, almost predicable. Just wait for them to act against China, we have been building up the Uyghurs story for a few years now.
That does appear to be the strategy they’re laying the groundwork for. The people who’d suffer the most for it would obviously be the Uyghurs themselves.
Unfortunately true.
… All the better to fund Uyghur terrorsm.
Xinjiang could be China’s Chechnya.
That has been so good for the ordinary people of Chechnya, and Syria, and Libya, and Yemen, and Sudan, and Somalia, and everywhere Biden’s friends and new advisers have done it so often.
China causes Uyghurs to become terrorists, it is trying to erase their language, culture, customs and religion with re-education camps.It does the same thing with Tibetans.
drivel–your CIA propaganda is tiresome
I am not into the CIA. I disapprove of the USA’s endless wars, drone strikes , endless aid to Israel , plotting coups in poor nations & calling for regime change.
“China” is a land mass. Apart from tectonic movement, etc., it does nothing.
I was not referring to the land mass, I was referring to China’s government. It may not be a threat to other nations but it is a threat to the Uyghur & Tibetan Peoples.
Its doubtful that such measures will work, and also a betrayal of the original Revolution, which was driven by Chinese nationalism. China is very diverse, but all share in having been born of that land.
The Euros couldn’t defeat China openly even with opium, so they foster the CCP to do the work fro them.
Shadow cultural warfare didn’t work in Russia; traditional Russian culture survived and made a strong comeback.
Two of my comments were deleted, most people here on this site would agree with me about Theodor Hertzl. Is it because Johnson b wanted it deleted?
Johnson b is not a moderator here. Your comments were deleted because they violated the site’s guidelines. Feel free to post comments that don’t.
Oddly, two of the things you mention would not violate the guidelines, and while the third one (“Jews I don’t like aren’t really Jews”) would, and therefore won’t be published, I don’t see an instance of that in the recently deleted comment.
The best way to avoid having your comments moderated over ethnic slurs is to not engage in them. Trying to smuggle them in as questions isn’t going to work either.
Oddly, two of the things you mention would not violate the guidelines, and while the third one (“Jews I don’t like aren’t really Jews”) would, and therefore won’t be published, I don’t see an instance of that in the recently deleted comment.
The best way to avoid having your comments moderated over ethnic slurs is to not engage in them. Trying to smuggle them in as questions isn’t going to work either.
Just like al Qaeda in Syria, they may be terrorists, but they are our terrorists.
Short term thinking, as we saw with al Qaeda in Afghanistan. How dare anybody else treat them the same way!
Amerika is a terrorist organization–this is expected