BEIJING:
Uighurts from China’s far western region of Xinjiang, who have travelled to Turkey via Southeast Asia, are being trained in Syria and Iraq, with the aim of bringing Jihad back to China, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry on Wednesday.
Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Uighurs, a largely Muslim ethnic minority that calls Xinjiang home, have left China in recent years.
Rights groups say such migrants are mostly fleeing ethnic violence in Xinjiang and Chinese controls on their religion and culture. Hundreds of people have died in unrest in Xinjiang in the last three years, blamed by Beijing on Islamist militants.
China’s Foreign Ministry said that the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a group Beijing says seeks an independent state in Xinjiang, finds followers from the region to seek training in the Middle East with the intent of returning to wage jihad.
