Talk:Turkistan Islamic Party

Sean Roberts says ETIM is mostly a hoax
According to Sean Roberts' recent piece for Foreign Policy, the ETIM "barely existed," but it has been exaggerated by the Chinese government to justify its crackdown on Uyghurs. If this is true, we should update the article accordingly. Qzekrom (she/her &bull; talk) 18:41, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
 * I can see that the article already covers Sean Roberts' voicing the same concerns a decade earlier, his stance then being "It is difficult to justify the allegations that ETIM is a sophisticated and dangerous terrorist organization with links to Al-Qaeda and it is perfectly reasonable to assume that the organization no longer exists at all,". The skeptic angle seems to be divided in two parts: It never having existed at all, or it maybe having existed once upon a time. As it stands, the article seems to neutrally both sides, so I'm guessing it's just a matter of appending this new article to the "analysis" section. Eik Corell (talk) 19:35, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

What changes should be made after the US dropped TIP/ETIM from its terrorism list?
There is quite some conflicting sentences in the designation section of TIP as a terrorist organization. The section starts with a list of countries and entities that designate TIP as a terrorist organization, which also includes the United States. Yet, immediately after that same sentence, we read that US dropped ETIM/TIP from its terrorism list in 2020. So, could we remove the US from that section (and also other sections of the article that has the US designate TIP as terrorist organization in present tense)?Xaveq 01:52, 3 February 2022 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Xaveq (talk • contribs) 22:38, 2 June 2021 (UTC) Xaveq 01:51, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

The attack list is suspect
According to this source China use the historic name of the group 'East Turkistan Islamic Movement' (ETIM) as broader term for Uighur jihadist groups not just TIP, which result in attacked being attributed to TIP which may not have anything todo with it. --Jakey222 (talk) 01:50, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

Growing Consensus
The skeptical thesis that ETIM doesn't exist / was a small organization from over a decade ago is gaining traction. This isn't a new theory, bit it's increasingly accepted in academic and foreign policy circles that ETIM is a largely non-existent organization China invokes to dismiss Uyghur political activities they dislike as terrorism. The sotry goes that the US turned a blind eye since they wanted China on board with the War on Terror, bit almost two decades lates there is no need to play ball anymore.

My question is, what do we do with this article? So far, the solution has been to bury this information in the "analysis" section, but if the explaination is true, that seems insufficient. At what point do we have to re-wrote the article to point out that this organization's existence is dubious? And what is the threshold of citations we need for that to be the dominant interpretation? Most of the existing info in the article is proped up with decade-old citations that are simply outdated. But, I don't know how best to approach updating it to reflect the latest scholarship. Loquacious Folly (talk) 04:54, 24 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Interesting, can you expand on that a bit? Because some sources I've read still say the group exists in some form, even if its extremely marginal, but that largely fits with what you say. If you provide some sources, I'll be happy to try to reorganize the article. The Account 2 (talk) 23:13, 21 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Be wary of using post-2016 South China Morning Post as a reliable source. See WP:SCMP BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:52, 23 August 2022 (UTC)


 * The consensus is that a militant organization under the name of the Turkistan Islamic Party continues to be active and maintains a significant presence in Syria and Afghanistan, whatever its role is in Turkistan itself. The position that an "ETIM" doesn't exist seems to be obfuscation, intentionally misleading by referring to the dead name, and remains a fringe position. Lightspecs (talk) 07:42, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

@The Account 2. Sounds good. I'm on vacation now, but once I'm back in a couple weeks I'll list the sources here I was referring to back in April. I'm not familiar with the South China Morning Post article noted by BobFromBrockley, so no need to worry that I had it in mind. There was an extensive article in this topic in (probably the March edition?) of The Walrus, which cited several academics whose work has been advancing this as the dominant view in recent years. I'll go find and link to their work once I have a minute.

I welcome Lightspecs to add their own sources if they are convinced that this take on the question is mistaken. Loquacious Folly (talk) 11:38, 26 August 2022 (UTC)


 * @The Account 2. I decided to go ahead and link some of the articles now. There are a few more I can find later. Some may not be accessible without access to an academic database, but The Walrus is fully accessible online and the article gives a summary of the key points from the other two I mention here:

- | Charting the Course of Uyghur Unrest (The China Quarterly, 2012) by Justin Hastings

- | Endless Exile: The Tangled Politics Keeping a Uyghur Man in Limbo (The Walrus, 2022) by Annie Hylton

- | The War on the Uyghurs by Sean R. Roberts

Loquacious Folly (talk) 12:14, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

It might be worth noting that this position exists among some in these circles. It would be completely undue weight for the article to take this position as fact. In fact Sean R. Roberts himself does not deny the TIP's existence. He acknowledges the TIP, which maintains a presence in Afghanistan, Waziristan, and Syria, as a real and existent organization, but denies their presence within China itself. This is, again, very different from "the TIP doesn't exist". Do any of the authors you cited actually maintain this position?


 * Turkistan Islamic Party musters large force for battles in Syria. Thomas Joscelyn. Foundation for Defense of Democracies. 29 June 2019.
 * The Turkistan Islamic Party in Double-Exile: Geographic and Organizational Divisions in Uighur Jihadism. Jacob Zenn. The Jamestown Foundation. 7 September 2018.
 * AP Exclusive: Uighurs fighting in Syria take aim at China. Gerry Shih. 23 December 2017.

The US State Department itself does not deny the TIP's existence, and continues to call them "terrorists", but asserts that they are different from the "ETIM", a distinction academic sources deny.

Lightspecs (talk) 01:18, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

I've only spoken on the ETIM. The only person equivocating between the ETIM and TIM is User:Lightspecs. I would suggest they actually read the cited articles and my comments instead of arguing against things nobody has claimed.

It also would not be undo weight given the comparative weakness of User:Lightspecs sources. They cite one five-year old AP article and two briefs from hawkish conservative think tanks. In contrast two two peer reviwed academic articles/books and some investigative journalism feom this year. If anything, it supports the narrative described in the works I cited, since the main sources for this group's existence are pro-war on terror American think tanks. If this is the best that can be shored up by someone insistent on defending the outdated narrative, it's weak stuff. Loquacious Folly (talk) 07:00, 29 August 2022 (UTC)


 * "Several Member States reported that the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) (QDe.088), also known as the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), is estimated to have between 1,000 and 2,000 fighters, mainly operating in Idlib and commanded by Kaiwusair.
 * "The Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), also known as the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), was first established in the Xinjiang region of China, with its first reported attack in 1998."
 * "The Uyghur fighters that have been relocated inside Afghanistan are believed to be members of the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP) -- an Uyghur extremist group that Beijing blames for unrest in its western province of Xinjiang and refers to by its former name, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM)."
 * "ETIM/Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) has between 1,500 and 3,000 fighters in Idlib."
 * "This counter-terrorism rhetoric was amplified in the years running up to the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games when YouTube videos started to emerge in 2006 indicating that ETIM had undergone a transformation and was now branding itself as the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP)." " If

the ‘old’ groups like ETA and LTTE were firmly secular groups, and ‘new’ groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS are undeniably religious in their motive, then Uyghur groups like ETIM/TIP fall between two stools analytically." "
 * "The area was once relatively peaceful, but fell under Taliban control in 2015 and is now home to members of both the Taliban and a separatist group that is known as both the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) and the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP)."
 * "Britain’s Home Office, or interior ministry, on Friday designated ETIM, which it also called the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP), as an “Islamic terrorist and separatist organization” trying to create an “independent caliphate” in Xinjiang."


 * The ETIP/ETIM being the TIP/TIM's former name is well established. It's the premise of this article which is backed up by reliable sources (yes, some of these sources may not be reliable and/or may be outdated, but a case by case check is required before dismissing the entire article) in spite of your claim that I'm the only one equivocating them. The position that these are two separate and unrelated organizations is the fringe one, but again, it should also be noted with attribution as there are enough sources backing it up. It's different thing from revising the entire article to suit this narrative.


 * Additional opinions would be helpful.


 * Lightspecs (talk) 01:09, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for pinging. I have to recuse myself as not being an expert on the topic. But will follow the discussion with interest. — kashmīrī  TALK  07:52, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I have to support Lightspecs' position. Generally speaking, the existence of TIP was never really questioned by anyone; and the question of ETIM's existence is not really about whether ETIM never existed but rather whether it was always the same as TIP. I must note that my knowledge is mainly related to conflicts in Afghanistan and the Middle East, whereas I am not well versed in the militant conflicts of China. However, most of the sources I encountered over the years treated TIP and ETIM as being the same, with ETIM serving as a kind of public / moderate face + more "party"-like wing and TIP being the armed wing. However, TIP itself has been traditionally split into regional chapters, such as its Syrian branch, so it is possible that there was a difference between TIP and ETIM in the past (with ETIM being the chapter operating in China and the West, while TIP operated in Afghanistan and Syria). As the article currently outlines, there were also several mergers/splits in the regional militant groups, so even if ETIM and TIP actually had different origins (which is disputable), they appear to be currently one force. Applodion (talk) 12:16, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Well here's my two cents on the issue, hope it helps in some way


 * The group clearly think it exists; it even has a spokesperson that gave an interview to Newsweek (though the interview genuinely made me kind of think if it's the same group)


 * A Council on Foreign Relations article last updated in 2014 has a line that says "Some experts say ETIM is an umbrella organization for many splinter groups, including ones that operate in Pakistan and central Asia. The Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP), for instance, is one of the most prominent groups, formed in 2006 by Uighurs who fled to Afghanistan and Pakistan in the 1990s."


 * This Jamestown article (as noted by a user above) from 2018 says China uses ETIM as a designation for a broad term of separatist groups including TIP. It also says "If the TIP is the jihadist wing of what China would refer to as ETIM, then the Istanbul-based and Uighur-led East Turkistan Education and Solidarity Association (ETESA) is the Islamist wing of ETIM"


 * Official position of the Chinese government seems to be that ETIM and TIP are the same organization


 * This Quartz article gives an interesting rundown on what might be the ETIM/TIP link with saying "Following his [Hasan Mahsum] death the next year, the ETIM went silent, and appears to have splintered. In 2008, one of those splinters resurfaced, calling itself the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP)..."


 * James Millward, an expert about Uyghurs, say ETIM existed but the group has been defunct since the 2000s (in Twitter, he also says ETIM and TIP are separate)


 * This book says that TIP leader al-Turkistani said the previous name of TIP was East Turkestan Islamic Party (ETIP)


 * This report says ETIM went quiet in 2003 but TIP emerged in 2008, claiming to be the successor of ETIM


 * So we can gather several conclusions from this: First of all, there's no dispute that a group called TIP exists, operating in Syria and Afghanistan. 2. There seems to be a group called ETIM in the early 2000s, but whether it turned to TIP, splintered or was completely gone is in dispute. 3. Some sources seem to say that China uses ETIM as a designation to a broad number of groups. So in conclusion the biggest dispute seems to be what kind of connection ETIM the minor group that likely existed in the 2000s has with the current TIP. which indisputably exists. I hope I could've been helpful in some way! The Account 2 (talk) 14:48, 30 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the links. It seems that the US government in recent years has adopted a policy of deliberate ambiguity on the group. First bombing TIP (whom they called ETIM) positions in Afghanistan in February 2018, releasing a report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction which identified the TIP and ETIM as synonyms that same year, before removing the ETIM from its list of terrorist groups in 2020 with the rationale being its non-existence, then continuing to identify the TIP as active terrorists but separate from the ETIM. The statements from the TIP in response to the delisting as reported both by Newsweek and in this article (which identified Hasan Mahsum as the founder of the TIP) do confirm that they themselves affirm their active existence and their synonymity with the ETIM. Lightspecs (talk) 01:01, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

Idlib headquarters
Since Idlib is liberated by the Syrian army there is no evidence this organisation still use it as HQ 92.218.146.145 (talk) 06:00, 19 May 2023 (UTC)