I’ve kept my eye out for any more information on the Turkistan Islamic Party and so far the only piece of news that I’ve come across in the Chinese blogosphere is this post from Michael of Opposite End of China.
Michael like me doesn’t see much truth behind the group’s claims, but he also had stories from the South China Morning Post in the post I linked to above. The second stories has a source that says maybe the Chinese government or the Xinjiang provincial government was behind this video so they can justify a crackdown in Xinjiang.
But to be honest I am not sure that the Chinese government is behind it either. So who is?
J.
2 Comments
August 1, 2008 at 6:40 am
After looking into this more I’ve found that the East Turkestan Islamic Movement has Also called itself the East Turkestan Islamic Party. If the TIP is the same group as the ETIM then they just dropped the East from their other name. It is typical for jihadi groups to change their name for various reasons.
This could also be a splinter group or a totally new group. What I think is important is establishing whether this group has linkages to the IMU and further al-Qaeda. If this group is a splinter of the ETIM or a new group, comprised of members that fought alongside either the IMU or al-Qaeda, this group should be taken seriously.
Unfortunately, this will be very hard to establish quickly because of the Chinese government’s desire to take care of these problems themselves and to keep it quiet.
As far as allegations that the Chinese government is behind this whole thing, it is highly doubtful. They don’t want publicity like this surrounding the Olympics and they don’t need an excuse like this to carry out a crackdown. They have carried out crackdowns before without such unnecessary tactics.
August 10, 2008 at 8:59 pm
Thanks for the information Torry.
J.