China could potentially assist the United States in fighting jihadists in Afghanistan, home to Uighur jihadi training camps linked to the Taliban and al-Qaeda, a top Pentagon official told a Senate panel.
Afghan officials told reporters this week that Beijing is reportedly holding discussions with Kabul over establishing a military base near China’s border with Afghanistan.
The Uighur jihadi threat facing China has prompted Beijing to focus on taking on a “central role” in reconstruction efforts in Syria, reports the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies (BESA), an Israeli think-tank.
Multiple media outlets have reported that Beijing is planning to send its elite special forces, known as the “Tigers of Siberia” and the “Night Tigers,” to support troops loyal to dictator Bashar al-Assad in Syria.
Communist state authorities in the Muslim-majority Xinjiang Uighur autonomous region, the largest province in China, have sentenced a distinguished theological scholar to ten years in prison for “illegal religious activity,” reports Radio Free Asia (RFA), citing local sources.
An estimated 5,000 members of China’s Uighur, or Uyghur, minority group are waging jihad on behalf of the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL), al-Qaeda, and other terrorist groups, according to Reuters, citing the Syrian ambassador to Beijing.
The Chinese government has published its semi-annual human rights report on the United States, condemning America for a variety of alleged “human rights violations” which include widespread gun ownership, “angry” voters in the 2016 elections, and “gunshots lingering in people’s ears behind the Statue of Liberty.”
Police killed three armed “thugs” in China’s western Xinjiang province this week after the still-unnamed suspects stabbed five people to death and injured five others. Chinese officials have yet to identify their motive, though the incident occurred in a region known to host a violent Muslim separatist movement.
Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Veysi Kaynak told a national television outlet that the yet-unnamed jihadi responsible for killing dozens at Istanbul’s Reina nightclub on New Year’s Eve is likely a member of the Uighur Muslim ethnic minority, which makes its home in China and central Asia.
Human rights researchers have published an updated study accusing China of conducting tens of thousands of organ transplants using the bodies of political prisoners without their consent. While the practice has been known to occur in the communist nation for decades, Beijing alleges that it long stopped harvesting organs from prisoners of conscience.
A man named Elia Yasin, a member of the Uighur ethnic minority, has been sentenced to seven years in prison by Chinese authorities for watching a film about Muslim migration that was deemed politically “sensitive.”
The Chinese government passed an “antiterrorism” law right after they announced they will not renew press credentials for French journalist Ursula Gauthier after she criticized their treatment of the Muslim Uighur minority.
Shanghai police have arrested 10 Turkish nationals suspected of aiding terrorists in China’s Xinjiang region by “supplying fake passports.”
