By Zachary Keck
The Diplomat - October 22, 2014
Al-Qaeda central appears to have joined the Islamic State
in calling for jihad against China over its alleged occupation of
Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
This week, al-Sahab media organization, al-Qaeda’s propaganda arm, released the first issue of its new English-language magazine Resurgence.
The magazine has a strong focus on the Asia-Pacific in general, with
feature articles on both India and Bangladesh, as well as others on
Afghanistan and Pakistan.
However, the first issue also contains an article entitled
“10 Facts About East Turkistan,” which refers to the name given to
Xinjiang by those who favor independence from China. The ten facts seek
to cast Xinjiang as a longtime independent state that has only recently
been brutally colonized by Han Chinese, who are determined to obliterate
its Islamic heritage.
“In the last 1,000 years of its Islamic history,” the
article says, Xinjiang “has remained independent for 763 years, while
237 years have been spent under Chinese occupation at various
intervals.”
This occupation has been costly, the article argues,
alleging that: “In 1949, 93 percent of the population of East Turkistan
was Uyghur, while 7 percent was Chinese. Today, as a result of six
decades of forced displacement of the native population and the
settlement of Han Chinese in their place, almost 45 percent of the
population of East Turkistan is Chinese.”
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