Back from the Dead: The Turkistan Islamic Party’s Abdul Haq al-Turkistani

Back from the Dead: The Turkistan Islamic Party’s Abdul Haq al-Turkistani

Jacob Zenn

One of the key militant groups in the Jaysh al-Fateh coalition in Syria, the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) is made up of more than 1,000 Uighurs from China’s westernmost Xinjiang region. [1] The TIP attributes its founding to Hassan Mehsum, who was killed in a Pakistani army raid in 2003 (People.cn, December 25, 2003). Mahsum’s successor, Abdul Haq al-Turkistani, led the TIP from 2003 until he was killed alongside Taliban militants in a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan in 2010. Or was he?

The TIP’s latest videos and announcements suggest that, despite prior reports of his death, Abdul Haq is alive (Terrorism Monitor, March 11, 2010). This profile of Abdul Haq al-Turkistani discusses three recent TIP videos establishing that he is alive. The three videos also portray the role Abdul Haq is playing in establishing TIP credentials with al-Qaeda at a time of heightened al-Qaeda-Islamic State competition, especially among Central Asian militant groups.

First Video

The first video of Abdul Haq al-Turkistani emerged on May 28 and was called a “Conversation with Abdul Haq Damollah” (Damollah is an alternative surname for Abdul Haq and other recent TIP leaders) (siddiqlar.biz, May 28). In the conversation, an elderly Abdul Haq argues that the Islamic State’s (IS) caliphate is illegitimate. He warns Muslims not to join IS, while urging Muslims to join the jihad against China because it is a “religious duty.” As is typical of TIP propaganda, he describes the Chinese as “occupiers” in Xinjiang in an effort to compare Xinjiang’s situation to Palestine’s.

The purpose of the video, however, was likely to respond to and clarify information about the Taliban’s killing or capture of the leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) in Afghanistan. The IMU was a former parent organization to a then fledgling TIP in the 1990s and 2000s. In 2015, however, IMU leader Usman Ghazi pledged loyalty to IS leader Abubakar al-Baghdadi along with dozens of his followers (Terrorism Monitor, May 29, 2015). According to Abdul Haq, Hassan Mehsum established a relationship with the IMU, but after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the IMU’s new leaders, such as the late Osman Adil and Usman Ghazi, who succeeded late founder Tahir Yuldash, “lost the respect of Muslims,” “went beyond the limits of Islamic law,” and “killed people based on only suspicion.” The last straw was when the “IMU labeled the leaders of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan as apostates.” This is when Abdul Haq claims the TIP stopped advising the IMU (and the Taliban subsequently killed Ghazi and other IMU members) (RFERL, November 28, 2015).

Abdul Haq’s purpose is likely to justify the Taliban’s actions and prevent criticism of the Taliban for killing other Muslims, which is contrary to the image that al-Qaeda and the Taliban desire to portray. In addition, the TIP is seeking to deter other militant groups from the leaving the al-Qaeda camp. Thus, Abdul Haq not only asserts his own authority but also carries a message from al-Qaeda and shores up al-Qaeda and Taliban confidence in the TIP as an ally in Syria and Afghanistan.

Second Video

In a second video released on June 5, Abdul Haq shifted focus from the broader al-Qaeda themes to a message directly targeting Uighurs in western China (Siddiqlarbiz.com [page removed], June 5). The message was called “Address to the Farmer Brothers and Sisters.” Typical of TIP propaganda, it explained that the “red Han Chinese infidels invaded the inseparable part of the Islamic land, our homeland East Turkistan” and that the “filthy infidels have firstly deceived and exploited our kind-hearted innocent brothers and sisters with their unethical and deceptive policies and have inflicted great destruction.” Abdul Haq then said that these “invaders” were responsible for the loss of arable farming land in Xinjiang and called on farmers to join the “jihadi movement.”

Presumably, Abdul Haq’s target audience was poor Uighurs in Xinjiang. He hopes they will leave China and join the TIP in Syria by traveling through Turkey, possibly with the support of Turkish “humanitarian organizations” that have facilitated Uighur travel to Turkey often on falsified documents (China Brief, September 10, 2014). This shows that while TIP is enmeshed in the global jihadist environment, the “local” insurgency in Xinjiang is also a priority. This, however, is not inconsistent with al-Qaeda strategy. In the 19th edition of the TIP’s magazine Islamic Turkistan, Abu Qatada al-Filistini justified the Xinjiang-focused objectives of the TIP. Al-Filistini said that it was “ignorant” to say the TIP was “nationalistic” and rather that “brothers” should always act “locally” whenever they can, because that is where they are most effective; this, however, is different than “nationalism.” Al-Filistini also explained that if “jihadists” cannot fight locally because there is too much pressure on them or for any other reason, it is acceptable for them to move to another location, as the TIP had done by moving to Syria (Islamic Turkistan 19, April 28).

Third Video

After the first two videos, it was clear that, contrary to reports about his death in 2010, Abdul Haq was alive, and his third video was aimed at explaining this. In a video titled “Tale of Wisdom,” Abdul Haq explained how in 2010 the TIP base was bombed from the air for the first time “and since then, many of our brothers passed away by enemy strikes.” According to Abdul Haq, 15 brothers became martyrs in the airstrike that reportedly killed him: “only one of them was Pashtun, and the rest of them were our own brothers from Turkistan.” Abdul Haq says he was then advised to live undercover, because he was a target, and to take advantage of the reports that he was dead. This is why the TIP then announced that Abdul Shakur al-Turkistani was the TIP leader in 2011 even though Abdul Haq was really still alive (Militant Leadership Monitor, December 30, 2011). It was after the “martyrdom” of Abdul Shakur al-Turkistani in 2012, when “the morale among our boys was very low… that we released speeches while staying in hiding.” Now, in 2016, Abdul Haq has come out of the shadows and revealed himself not only to his followers but to the entire jihadist community, not to mention China, the United States and other countries that presumed he was dead.

Conclusion

Abdul Haq is a senior TIP member and a longstanding al-Qaeda ally. He also has credentials dating to the pre-2001 era and his proximity to the founders of the IMU as well as Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar will give both him and the TIP greater legitimacy and influence among international jihadists in Syria and abroad. His reemergence also fills a void left by the deaths of Hassan Mehsum before him in 2003, Abdul Shakur al-Turkistani in 2012 and Abu Ridha al-Turkistani (a Syria-based successor to Abdul Shakur) in 2015 (Terrorism Monitor, May 29, 2015).

Moreover, the fact that Abdul Haq was in hiding due to security concerns and now is once again a public figure could indicate he is living in security, possibly in Turkey, where the TIP has received shelter. His most important task moving forward may be to re-link the TIP and allied jihadist groups in Syria, particularly Uzbek groups, to the Afghan theater that he is familiar with and where Central Asian militants have a played a key role in Taliban offensives in the northern of the country since 2015.

Jacob Zenn is an Associate Fellow of African and Eurasian Affairs for The Jamestown Foundation.

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