A suicide bomber attacked the Embassy of China in Bishkek on 30 August, it was ethnic Uighur with Tajik passport. This is the first attack by Uighur separatists at the official Chinese institutions outside China. Many Uighur separatists are involved in the fighting in Syria, but if they decide to fight with China in the post-Soviet republics of Central Asia, it can cause serious destabilization in the region.
August 30 a suicide bomber on the mined car tried to RAM the gates of the Chinese Embassy in Bishkek. The explosion killed himself, several people were injured.
A suicide bomber attacked the Chinese, were ethnic Uighurs, who used the passport of the citizen of Tajikistan, later officially declared the State Committee of national security of Kyrgyzstan.
This incident is a very troubling sign for the former Soviet republics of Central Asia. Currently, a significant part of the Uyghur separatists are involved in the fighting in Syria. But if they decide to fight with China in the post-Soviet republics of Central Asia, it can cause serious destabilization of the situation.
People without a state
The problem of the Uighurs in the fact that it is the largest nation of Central Asia that do not have their own state.
Most of them, about 10 million live in China, namely the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous region (XUAR). Xinjiang is a territory of traditional residence of the Uighurs. Here in the Middle ages existed in their States-khanates.
Since the advent of the Uighurs in this region about 1.5 thousand years ago they had to deal with the expansion of China. In the second half of the XIX century Uyghur Ghulja city and its surroundings became a part of the Russian Empire. With the Russian authorities to the local population was much less controversy than the Chinese: the positive role played by the fact that Russia is already subordinate to other Muslim Turkic peoples (Uyghurs are Turkic people professing Sunni Islam), and the government had a long practice of management.
In 1881 Russia gave China the Kulja and the surrounding area. Many local Uighurs do not want to live under the rule of the Chinese, and crossing the Tien Shan mountains, appeared on the territory controlled by the Russians. Thus emerged the areas of compact residence of the Uighurs in the South-East of modern Kazakhstan and the North of Kyrgyzstan.
Today the number of Uighurs is estimated at 200 thousand people in Kazakhstan and about 50 thousand in Kyrgyzstan.
Until recently it was not known cases of participation of Kazakh or Kyrgyz Uighurs in the terrorist group “Islamic movement of Eastern Turkestan (ETIM), which is struggling with the Chinese authorities in Xinjiang and conducts terrorist attacks in other regions of China. ETIM consists mainly of Chinese Uighurs and declares the necessity of separating Xinjiang from China, to build on its territory of an independent Uighur theocratic (Sunni) state.
Before the war in Syria, the main base of the terrorist organization was located in the Western mountainous areas of Pakistan, along the border with Afghanistan. These areas are not under the control of official government.
The ETIM militants tried to enter the territory of Xinjiang through the mountainous remote areas of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan. However, the Chinese army and secret services were able to effectively thwart such attempts.
And even those supporters of the ETIM, which again was in China and carried out terrorist attacks, with rare exceptions, had no small arms and explosives — which again speaks in favor of the Chinese security forces, who managed to stop the smuggling of weapons from neighboring countries.
The attacks were committed with bladed weapons (attacks with knives on the ethnic Chinese in Xinjiang, for example) or car (crashed into a mass gathering of ethnic Chinese).
The level of the Kazakhstan and Kyrgyz secret services is much lower than the Chinese. So if Uighur separatists, seriously gunning for a fight with China, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, it will cause big problems with security in the former Soviet republics.
Who can become a target for the Uighurs
To find objects for attacks in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, as well as in neighboring Tajikistan and Uzbekistan Uighur separatists will not be difficult. In addition to direct Chinese embassies, there are many representative offices of Chinese companies, the Chinese migrants (though not necessarily ethnic Chinese, a lot, for example, Chinese Muslims, who belong to a particular ethnic group, called in Russian “Dungan”).
Chinese business plays a significant role in the economy of the former Soviet republics. In Kyrgyzstan, in particular, thanks to Chinese investors, a number of projects in the energy, mining and transport. For example, Chinese money modernizarea CHP plant in Bishkek, construction of a new road connecting the North and South of the country, as well as new power transmission line Datka – Kemin.
So the revitalization of Uyghur terrorism may cause significant economic damage to the former Soviet republics.
Themselves Kazakhstan and the Kyrgyz, the Uighurs informal communication to Express solidarity with their compatriots fighting with the authorities in Xinjiang. Hostile attitude of the Uighurs to the Chinese due to the fact that throughout history the Chinese are very cruelly treated, captured and defeated Uighur population. The number of mixed marriages among members of these peoples in China not exceeds the level of sociological margin of error.
The government also supports the ethnic Chinese and the Dungans who migrated to Xinjiang for permanent residence, to the detriment of the local Uighurs. For immigrants, for example, built a new brick house with centralised water supply (this is very important because a large part of the district is desert area), while a significant number of Uighurs continue to live in traditional Adobe houses. The quality of education in schools, the teaching of the Chinese language, is much higher than in schools with Uighur language.
As a result, the Uighurs believe that the Chinese government is waging against them a policy of “quiet genocide.” Today they make up less than half, 45%, of the total population in Xinjiang.
Therefore, prerequisites for the resolution of this ethnic conflict has not yet seen. And it is logical that, without being able to inflict effective damage to the Chinese state in Xinjiang, the separatists will try to make it where easier.
The Uyghurs on the side of Syrian rebels
2015 ETIM engaged in hostilities in Syria. The Arab media claim that the ETIM militants participating in the “battle for Aleppo” consisting of jabhat al Fatah al-sham”, banned in Russia. As he writes in his blog the Angry Arab American analyst of Lebanese descent Assad Abu Khalil, Uighur militants are involved in elite units, including they are on death row, which guarantee a particularly important task.
“Jihadism now there are two kinds of suicide — says Abu Khalil. The first is intaari that uses just a belt with explosives, his job is to explode at a designated place. The second inimesi, who in addition to explosive belts has any light weapons. The second type are the best fighters, they are fighting until the ammunition, and then blow themselves up”.
Ethnic Uighurs make up units engimas — elite bombers in the formation of the Syrian rebels.
In Syria on the side of the terrorists, too, enough of the militants from the former Soviet republics of Central Asia. According to official information from the Kyrgyz authorities, in the ranks of terrorist organizations, there is a minimum of 500 of their citizens. There are all necessary conditions for the emergence of a terrorist international, which could start armed struggle against the Chinese in the same Kyrgyzstan.
In connection with the attack against the Chinese Embassy on August 30 special services of Kyrgyzstan have arrested five suspects — all of them citizens of the country. Two other suspects, also citizens of Kyrgyzstan, presumably, are in Turkey (as you know, in Syria on the side of terrorist organizations come through Turkey, so perhaps they are in Syria).
After the attack, the press Secretary of the Ministry of foreign Affairs of China Hua Chunying said that the ETIM poses a serious threat not only for China but also for Syria and for the countries of Central Asia.
Agree with her Raffaello Pantucci, head of Department for international security of the Royal United services Institute for defence studies in London. There is a “significant risk” of further attacks on China and Chinese citizens abroad, quoted Pantucci “Voice of America”. In Syria, according to him, the fighting involved at least 200 ethnic Uighurs.
“We are seeing a situation where the problem is Chinese domestic terrorism begins intensively enough to export to other countries”, — said the expert.
