Afghanistan: According to analysts and UN Security Council reports, the separatist Uighur East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), which China blames for the terror attacks in its far-western region of Xinjiang, lives in Afghanistan and is believed to have Many have been rebuilt.

Following the Taliban's return to power last year, China pledged its support to leaders seeking to prosecute the ETIM, also known as the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP).

ETIM operates in Afghanistan and Syria, and has close ties with several terrorist groups including al-Qaeda and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which analysts say is the Taliban's closest ally.

"Several Member States noted that ETIM/TIP continues to strengthen its ties with the TTP and Jamaat Ansarullah, increasing its military training on the manufacture and use of improvised explosive devices, focusing on morale , and is planning terrorist attacks against Chinese interests in the region. The time is right," according to a United Nations report released on July 15.

According to the report, ETIM has rebuilt several strongholds in Badakhshan, north-eastern Afghanistan, and "expanded its area of ​​operations and secretly procured weapons with the goal of improving its capabilities for terrorist activities." "
The assessment comes nearly a year after the Taliban vowed to regain power in Afghanistan and eliminate terrorist groups operating on its soil.
Since August last year, China has cautiously stepped up its engagement with the Taliban, pressing for action against ETIM, which it has long accused of promoting Uighur separatism in Xinjiang.

'A ticking time bomb for China'

Faran Jeffrey, deputy director and head of the South Asia Terrorism Desk at the Islamic Theology of Counter Terrorism (ITCT) in the United Kingdom, estimated that ETIM had about 1,000 ETIM/TIP fighters in Afghanistan. Their numbers are expected to increase as Uighur militants based in Syria return to Afghanistan.

Despite pressure from Beijing, Jeffrey said the Taliban made no effort to expel ETIM terrorists from Afghanistan. "However, the Taliban relocated some ETIM/TIP terrorists to Badakhshan, away from the Chinese border, to exercise some control over the group and show Beijing that it has no reason to be concerned," he said.

Afghanistan and China share a 74-kilometre (46-mile) border along the Far Wakhan Corridor, a narrow, inaccessible, and barely accessible strip of land that runs from the far northeastern Afghan province of Badakhshan to the predominantly Muslim region of China. It extends up to about 350 km. Xinjiang.

According to Jeffrey, the Taliban was "certainly not strong enough to persuade ETIM/TIP to launch any attack against China from Afghanistan," but it was seen as a "trump card" to ETIM against the Asian superpower. I was holding.
According to Jeffrey, the group has close ties with local terrorist commanders, and several ETIM terrorists have obtained Afghan identity documents.
"Although ETIM/TIP, like al-Qaeda, has kept a low profile for some time, it is a time bomb in China's neighborhood," he said.
According to Andrew Small, a Senior Transatlantic Fellow of the German Marshall Fund's Asia Program, the UN Security Council report is "very accurate, reflects the intelligence assessments of many countries."

Isis-K is attracting Uighur fighters

Meanwhile, ITCT's Jeffrey warned that Islamic State's Afghanistan ally, Islamic State-Khorasan (ISIS-K), was recruiting Uighurs and could target China.
According to a UN report, one member state reported that 50 Uyghur fighters moved from ETIM to Isis-K. Several member states reported that the ISIS-high K's salary helped recruit him.
“While the Taliban discourages Uyghur militants from carrying out attacks against China from Afghanistan, many Uyghur militants may see this as a betrayal, leading to a defection to ISIS-K, which is already a heavy target for the Taliban. and is making efforts to build relationships with non-Muslim countries such as China," Jeffrey said.

China and India are frequently mentioned in anti-Isis Taliban propaganda. The ISIS-K suicide bombing of a Shia mosque in Afghanistan by a Uighur terrorist in October foreshadowed what was to come.

"It was important." "ISIS-K was sending a message to both the Taliban and China that it has the ability to recruit Uighur terrorists and is causing a lot of problems for the Taliban and its relationship with China," Jeffery explained.

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