This blog is the third entry in a four-part series about the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), an al Qaeda (AQ)-affiliated, originally Uyghur Islamist terrorist group. Like many AQ affiliates, TIP has sought refuge with the Taliban in their “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.” There, it represents a liability to diplomatic efforts between the Taliban and the Chinese government. But after a decades-long history with Afghanistan, the TIP sees Central Asia as its base, despite its significant Syrian presence. All of these tensions warrant further analysis to better understand TIP and the threats it may pose from its Afghan sanctuary. 

Since the fall of Kabul in 2021, Afghanistan has become a safe haven for a wide range of Islamist terrorist groups. Even those opposing the governing Taliban regime, such as the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), have been able to use the mountainous geography to create sanctuaries. By contrast, groups of the al-Qaeda (AQ) network operating in Afghanistan, have gained refuge and support from the Taliban. Although the Taliban vehemently deny the presence of any foreign Islamist terror groups in the country, information from the United Nations (UN), among other organizations, exposes this as untrue. One of the groups present in Afghanistan is the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP). These Uyghur Islamist terrorists pose a global as well as a regional threat, having fought in the Syrian civil war and threatening the emergence of post-war peace and stability. But Afghanistan may be the more important hub. 

Uyghur ‘Pre-History’ in Afghanistan 

The TIP’s history in Afghanistan extends into the 1990s and is distinct from the larger history of Uyghur Islamist terrorists in Afghanistan. For the most part, Uyghurs were sidelined in the various global Islamist struggles in Afghanistan throughout the 1980s and 1990s. One reason may have been caution towards China, given that organizations like AQ used China’s booming economy to raise funds as well as Chinese server space in order to host jihadist web content. In the 1990s, Osama Bin Laden even publicly approved of the fact that China was ‘at least an anti-American power.’ As a result, the Uyghurs’ anti-China rhetoric back then did not enjoy mainstream appeal among Islamist terrorists. But some, such as Jalaluddin Haqqani, the leader of the Haqqani network, which remains a central part of the Taliban regime to this day, embraced them, boasting of including them in his network in the early 1990s. Further, it is conceivable that Uyghurs may have fought in the Soviet-Afghan War (1979-1989) alongside the mujahideen. However, evidence for this remains scarce. In any case, these early Uyghur foreign terrorist fighters would not have been organized as the TIP at the time. 

TIP’s Afghan Origins 

TIP’s origins in Afghanistan have been pinpointed to 1996, when Hasan Mahsum (also known as Abu Muhammad al-Turkistani) and other early TIP leaders fled from China to Afghanistan. Whether this is the actual founding date of TIP and whether the subsequently frequently changed names of the group – East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), sometimes East Turkestan Islamic Party (ETIP) – are accurate, will be discussed in the next blog. Regardless of whether it was founded in Afghanistan or Pakistan in 1997 or China in 1988, TIP founders were quite welcome in Afghanistan. Hasan Mahsum even received an Afghan passport from the Taliban. According to AQ, TIP has maintained allegiance to the Taliban ever since. AQ, equally  loyal to the Taliban, begun to support TIP as well. According to the Chinese UN representation, Osama Bin Laden personally began supporting TIP in 2000. Regardless of whether this is accurate, TIP trained, fought, and died alongside AQ in its camps in Afghanistan and, after the ouster of the Taliban and AQ from the country in 2002, in Pakistan. For example, its leader Hasan Mahsum was killed by the Pakistani military alongside AQ personnel in one such camp in Waziristan in 2003. In Pakistan, AQ and TIP intensified ties over the course of 20 years of exile from Afghanistan. The elevation of Uyghur personnel within AQ demonstrates this. Mahsum’s successor, Abdul Haq al-Turkistani, became a member of AQ’s governing shura council in 2005. And Abdul Haq’s short-term successor, Abdul Shakoor al-Turkistani, became AQ leader in Pakistan’s tribal areas after his appointment as TIP emir in 2011. 

The Return to Afghanistan and Service to the Taliban 

Together with AQ, TIP returned to Afghanistan following the Taliban’s 2021 reconquest of the country. Since 2021, the Taliban have sought to limit and integrate TIP and other AQ affiliates like the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU). This has included mobilizing them against ISKP. These AQ affiliates have also quartered themselves together in training camps throughout Afghanistan, alongside other AQ affiliated groups, such as the Pakistani Taliban (TTP). In its various camps, shared or otherwise, TIP is supported by AQ in training youths and has expanded targeted recruitment of women. In terms of materiel, TIP has access to some of the loot the Taliban took over from the Afghan National Army and reserves left behind by the withdrawing Western forces. This includes anti-tank missiles, and the group has also established multiple rotary-wing drone workshops. In Syria, TIP is appears to be more heavily armed yet. There, it is bolstered by access to aerial attack drones, tanks, armored vehicles, and other heavy weapons. 

TIP’s current emir, Abdul Haq al-Turkistani, is said to reside in Kabul. From there he directs fighters in Afghanistan that likely number in the low hundreds. Interestingly, the emir also continues to extend control over TIP forces in Syria. It remains to be seen whether his control will remain effective as Syrian TIP fighters become increasingly integrated into the new Syrian state and military. In Afghanistan, TIP fighters are increasingly localizing the organization. TIP engages both in mining operations in Afghanistan and has begun publishing propaganda in Kyrgyz, which is also spoken in Afghanistan. Further sources of funding have included zakat (charitable Islamic tax/donations), extortion, kidnapping, drug trafficking and underground money exchanges. 

The Taliban’s China Dilemma 

TIP is fighting anti-Taliban groups like ISKP, localizing to Afghanistan, and supporting Taliban tax collection. However, it is also cooperating with the TTP in targeting Chinese and Pakistani interests. The UN reports joint TIP and TTP cross-border operations into Pakistan, ignoring the official Taliban prohibition against cross-border terrorism. Such activities have even been labeled as haram (religiously forbidden) by Afghan Supreme Leader Haibatullah Akhundzada. The fact that the Taliban regime has refrained from enacting any noticeable sanctions against TIP or the TTP for violating this prohibition calls into question the seriousness of the Taliban regime and its leadership in its efforts to prevent the country from becoming once again a safe haven for transnational terrorism. 

Decades ago, in the 1990s, Mullah Omar issued a similar verdict against attacking China from Afghanistan, which the Uyghur Islamist terrorists adhered to. In line with this success of the past, China has asked the Taliban to step up efforts in fighting terrorists and take its neighbors’ security concerns seriously. In response, the Taliban issued a written promise at the 2023 Trilateral Pakistan-China-Taliban dialogue. They have also moved TIP’s headquarters from Badakhshan Province to Baghlan, away from the Chinese border, although TIP’s operational networks continue to stretch across multiple provinces. It is likely that, in response to Taliban inability or unwillingness to stop cross-border terrorism, Chinese economic engagement in Afghanistan has stalled. Afghan exports to China have dropped as Chinese imports have risen and promised investments have either remained below expectations or not materialized at all. However, the Taliban continue to show great interest in engagement with China. In March 2025, the Taliban trade minister met with the Chinese ambassador to announce a working group for addressing trade issues. Given these efforts, TIP has the potential to prevent Taliban success in increasing mutual trade and investment from China. TIP may indeed be the reason economic relations have remained below the Taliban's expectations. 

The ISKP Connection  

Despite TIP’s targeting of China, the most high-profile attack against Chinese citizens within Afghanistan in recent years was carried out by ISKP. This 2022 attack on a Chinese hotel in Kabul resulted in 20 casualties, largely Chinese citizens. Less than a month later, ISKP killed four and injured 40 in an attack on the Taliban Foreign Ministry, coinciding with a planned visit of a Chinese delegation. And most recently, in January of 2025, ISKP also claimed responsibility for the shooting of one Chinese citizen. While this seems like exactly the kind of violence the Taliban want TIP to prevent ISKP from exacting, it is also violence that TIP might condone. This is the ideological dilemma that TIP fighters are facing, and which ISKP propaganda purposefully exploits. Accordingly, there have been a few defections from TIP to ISKP. Perhaps in response to this, it is possible that there is some measure of organizational collusion now between TIP and ISKP in Afghanistan. In the case of the January 2025 shooting of a Chinese citizen, The Diplomat claims that it was carried out by TIP members and only claimed by ISKP. This modus operandi had allegedly been agreed by TIP and ISKP commanders. If true, it would allow TIP to offer its members continued “jihad” against China, curbing defections, while allowing ISKP to raise its profile. Such collusion between the TIP and other terrorist groups, resembling the case of TIP-TTP cross border attacks into Pakistan, would also increase the threat from both ISKP and TIP. 

Threat Assessment 

TIP’s presence in Afghanistan illustrates just why the group is such a threat. In the remote reaches of Afghanistan, it can plot and act with impunity under the Taliban regime. A regime seemingly unwilling to effectively curb the activities of its terrorist allies, even when these activities threaten the regime’s overall strategic interests. Furthermore, in its endeavors TIP can count on the support of groups that are part of the AQ network, such as TTP. And it may even have struck a deal with ISKP – currently one of the world’s most dangerous terrorist groups. While TIP’s Afghan presence may only number a few hundred, in Syria there are likely upwards of a thousand TIP foreign terrorist fighters. That these are currently being integrated into Syria’s nascent military and administration without any recognizable deradicalization processes or vetting is increasingly concerning. For the moment, TIP fighters in Syria remain beholden to the commands of their emir in Afghanistan, an AQ shura council member with terrorist designs against the world economy’s linchpin: China. Given all of this and the fact that TIP has proven for decades how hard it is to constrict its activities, TIP will remain a significant regional and global terrorist threat.