East Turkistan Islamic Party Appeals For New Recruits in New Video
The 43-minute video is entitled "Persistence and preparation for Jihad" and was produced by the group's media wing Sawt al Islam.
It includes a statement by the group's current leader Sheikh Abul Haq, as well as its late leader Hassan Makhdum, whose alias is Abu Mohammed al Turkistani. Abul Haq said "jihad" was a duty that falls on all Muslims just like any other religious duty. He also pledged more attacks against Chinese forces. "The operations of the Islamic Turkistani Party will make China experience the same taste of shame and defeat that America has experienced in Iraq and Afghanistan," Abul Haq said.
Footage from the group's training camp showed a group of militants undergoing training under the supervision of military commander identified as Seifullah. Once again, he claimed credit for the bus bombings and the attack on the police station in Shanghai and Yunnan in May and July of 2008.
The attacks seem to have been carried out using remotely-detonated explosives devices. Footage shown on the video showed a member of the group placing the explosives in a small suitcase and covering it with some cloths, while having a radio detonator in his hand.
Seifullah also made an appeal to Turkistani Muslims to join the group's camps in Waziristan and train on the latest weapons used by the Chinese army's ground forces. He said that the group is currently trying to develop a training program on other weapons used by the army.
The East Turkistan Islamic Movement is a militant group that advocates the creation of an independent, Islamic state of East Turkestan, formally part of Afghanistan, in what is currently the Xinjiang region of China.
The group is thought to have links with al Qaeda. In its 2005 report on terrorism, the U.S. State Department said that the group was "linked to al Qaeda and the international jihadist movement" and that al Qaeda provided the group with "training and financial assistance".