Uyghur Militant Group in Syria Appoints New Leader, Seeks Separatist State in Xinjiang

In a recent video released by Muhsinlar.net on Jan. 5, the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) officially announced that it has appointed Chinese Uyghur militant Abdulaziz Dawood Khudaberdi, also known by the name Zahid, as the ‘Emir,’ or brigadier-general of its Syrian branch.
🚨 Major General Abdulaziz Dawood (Zahid) has been newly appointed as ‘Emir’ of the Turkistan Islamic Party’s (TIP) Sham (Syria) Branch 🚨
Date: January 5, 2025.
Location: Idlib, Syria.
English Subtitles provided
Source: muhsinlar dot net pic.twitter.com/VnBHF9bYuu
— Arslan Hidayat.ئارسلان ھىدايەت (@arslan_hidayat) January 6, 2025
This comes a month after the overtake of Damascus by Western-funded rebel groups, mainly led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which resulted in the fall of former Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad.
What is the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP)?
Known for its deep involvement as an active terrorist group in the NATO-Gulf backed regime change war on Syria for over a decade, TIP is rising in power alongside other known terrorist groups, such as HTS, the offshoot of Al-Qaeda, within the region.
The TIP, formerly known as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), is a Uyghur separatist group with origins in China’s western province of Xinjiang. It seeks to create an independent Islamic state in Xinjiang called East Turkestan, and has recently threatened the Chinese government of bringing its separatist fight to China.
The TIP was a designated terrorist organization by China, the UN, and even the U.S. until 2020. The terrorist group was founded in 2006 along the border regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan by Uyghurs who had fled from China in the 1990s.
Due to Chinese pressure, however, the group’s influence in these countries has mostly diminished. When the Syrian civil war broke out in 2011, TIP sent an entire brigade, later becoming known as the Turkistan Islamic Party in Syria, which worked closely with Al-Qaeda and Al-Nusra to fight against the Syrian Arab Army.
TIP’s Involvement in Syria
The TIP has a long history in Syria. It has now become one of the largest, most unified, and non-Arab foreign militant groups involved in the region since 2012, being mostly composed of Uyghur militants from China’s Xinjiang province.
Its mercenaries played a pivotal role in the 2015 Idlib offensive against Syrian forces and were also heavily involved in fighting along northern Latakia and Aleppo in late 2016. Over time, the group has developed strong connections with a variety of militant movements under Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (JFS, formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra).
In the past, a number of Uyghur mercenaries and their families took refuge in the Syrian rebel stronghold of Idlib, with some numbers estimating around 5,000 by 2017.
Numerous sources have documented thousands of Uyghur fighters joining ISIS and other connected groups in Syria. Some sources even claim that a total of 2,000 to 2,500 TIP militants are currently fighting in northern Syria.
The current leader of HTS, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, a renowned former ISIS affiliate, has said, “They [TIP] are committed to defending Idlib against the Assad regime’s aggression because as Uyghurs, they face persecution in China – which we strongly condemn – and have nowhere else to go. But their struggle against China is not ours. They are welcome to stay as long as they abide by our rules – which they do.”
With the appointment of a new brigadier-general, the recent overthrow of the Syrian government, and the group’s fast rise to power, the TIP’s next moves are unpredictable.
Having achieved its goals in Syria, the group’s recent statements suggest it won’t be long before it brings back instability and separatist terrorism to China, more specifically in aiming to “liberate” its native province of Xinjiang.
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