Uyghur Jihadists Gain Senior Posts in Syria’s New Islamist Security Forces: Terror Attacks Into Central Asia Expected

Uyghur Jihadists from the East Turkestan Islamic Party have been appointed to senior positions within the new security forces of Syria, following the overthrow of the Syrian government by Islamist jihadist paramilitaries on December 8, 2024. The bulk of the fighting forces which overthrew the Syrian state including the large majority of its most capable combat units, were drawn from foreign jihadist groups across the world, with Central Asian jihadists from China’s Xinjiang region, and from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and other Central Asian states having played a particularly prominent role. The empowerment of these jihadist fighters, which seek to wage war against China and countries across Central Asia to establish a fundamentalist Islamic caliphate, has been viewed as a major threat by states in the region. Elaborating on the threat, Secretary of the Kyrgyz Security Council Marat Imankulov observed: “According to some estimates, up to 20,000 foreign militants are joining the Syrian security forces. Some of them are affiliated with the Islamic Movement of Eastern Turkestan. Experts believe that their ranks include up to 6,000 militants focused on destabilising China, as well as individuals from Central Asia and the North Caucasus. About 5,000 militants, not including their family members, have Central Asian roots.”

Imankulov warned that a “multinational terrorist threat” could spill over beyond Syria’s borders, with the country providing a base for jihadist groups to project power into Central Asia. “There is evidence that Syrian terrorist resources can be exploited by certain forces, both from within the country and from other regions, to change the political regime in Iran – a member of the SCO and a partner of Kyrgyzstan and our Central Asian neighbours.” He highlighted “the appointment of individuals who are wanted in their home countries for terrorist and extremist crimes to key government positions in Syria,” adding that “in addition to the propaganda effect, such individuals gain the ability to leave Syria without hindrance, visit other countries, and engage in destructive activities using their official status, which poses a significant threat.” He further noted that “the Islamic Movement of East Turkestan has received significant preferential treatment” by the new Syrian authorities, with which they are closely integrated. Central Asian militants have been granted citizenship by the new Syrian authorities, and have played a leading role in the ethnic cleansing of Syrian minorities, in particular the large Shiite population, which began in the late 2010s in the Idlib region straddling the Turkish border which was under their control.

Central Asian jihadist militants have been widely recruited and supported by the Turkish state since the 2000s, and have been funnelled from Afghanistan and China to Syria through Turkey with the support of Turkish intelligence services since the outbreak of a jihadist insurgency in Syria in 2011. Syria’s Idlib governate where the jihadists were previously concentrated before their advances, was long the primary hub of Islamist terror operations not only in Syria, but by many estimates in the wider world. U.S. envoy to the coalition fighting the Islamic State, Brett H. McGurk previously highlighted that “Idlib Province [in Northern Syria bordering Turkey] is the largest Al Qaeda safe haven since 9/11,” with jihadist militant forces based there numbering in the high tens of thousands. After the Syrian state’s overthrow, analysts have widely predicted that terrorist operations will expand very considerably with a degree of support from the Turkish government, and with a strong focus on China and Central Asia.