What’s Going on in Syria Part 2: Down the Uyghur Rabbit Hole

What a TIP victory in Syria might mean for China down the road...

A still from a TIP propaganda video highlighting the group’s role in overthrowing the China-backed Assad regime. Image source

The Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)- led Syrian rebel movement that toppled Assad earlier this month is a hodgepodge of several groups with varied ideologies and backgrounds. One of the most interesting of these groups is the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), a radical Islamist movement comprised of ethnic Uyghurs from northwest China’s Xinjiang autonomous region. With TIP fighters now having proved themselves highly effective on the Syrian battlefield, China’s growing military and economic footprint in Central Asia could make it a target for the group moving forward.