Turkistan Islamic Party

The Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) is an Uyghur Islamic extremist organization founded in Pakistan by Hasan Mahsum. Its stated goals are to establish an Islamic state in Xinjiang and Central Asia.

The Chinese government asserts that the TIP is synonymous with the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM). ETIM has been described by scholars as demanding total independence and supporting or being indifferent to more radical methods driven by religious and ethnic motives.

Influenced by the success of the Afghan mujahideen against the Soviets in the Soviet–Afghan War, the ETIP (which changed its name to the TIP in 2001) was established in September 1997 by Hasan Mahsum in Pakistan. After the September 11 attacks, the People’s Republic of China strove to include its repression of Uyghur opposition within the international dynamic of the struggle against Islamic terrorist networks. The TIP’s slogans contained anti-Communist rhetoric and calls for uniting Turks, indicating a movement akin to Islamic pan-Turkism historically congruent with southern Xinjiang rather than pure, radical Salafi jihadism or religious extremism. The group led a revolt lasting several days which was put down by the Chinese government, which deployed significant forces to suppress the insurrection. The Chinese government viewed them as a jihadist movement akin to the mujahideen in Afghanistan across the border which gave birth to more radical movements such as the Party of Allah and the Islamic Movement of East Turkistan.

The Syrian branch of the TIP was active in the Syrian civil war and were largely grouped in Idlib. The Syrian branch dissolved following the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime and was incorporated into the newly formed Ministry of Defense.