(Al Jazeera) Chinese officials are reportedly mulling military action against ISIL — an extremist group that Beijing now says includes a growing number of adherents from its embattled predominantly Muslim Uighur minority.
Beijing has been in talks of conducting airstrikes in support of Iraqi efforts against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq (ISIL) for months, with the foreign ministry in Baghdad appearing to confirm the development to the Financial Times on Friday.
The apparent promise of military intervention comes, analysts say, at a time when Beijing hopes to globalize support for a clampdown on China describes as Uighur terrorism. […]
“It’s not unlike what we saw after 9/11, when the Chinese government tried to make connections between Uighur dissent in China and Al-Qaeda’s international Islamist movement,” said Sean Roberts, a George Washington University professor and Uighur affairs expert. “At the onset of the wars against militants in Iraq and Afghanistan, the administration of former President George W. Bush pledged support for China’s crackdown on what it had called Uighur terrorism, but after analysts observed the dearth of evidence of Uighur terrorist groups not funneled through Chinese officials and media, Washington backed down from what had been mounting rhetoric against what China sees as its own homegrown security threat.”
See the full article ("China's anti-ISIL rhetoric aims to globalize Uighur crackdown, say experts") © Al Jazeera
