Uyghur guest houses suspected of ties to Islamist militancy

Intelligence analysts suspect Uyghur expatriates of staying in Uyghur guest houses suspected of ties to Islamist militancy.[1][2][3]

Pakistan

S. Frederick Starr, the author of Xinjiang: China's Muslim Borderland wrote that Chinese security officials viewed Pakistan as a haven for Uyghurs who were recruited to militancy in the 1990s.[1] Starr identified Kashgarabad and the Anwar ul-Ulum Abu Hanifa Madrassah as Uyghur guest houses that were suspected of ties to Islamic militancy, which had operated since the early 1990s. The Daily Times identified another Uyghur guest houses, named Hotanabad.

Kashgarabad

Kashgarabad was run by Uyghur traders in Islamabad.[1] It has been described as a guest house, a community center, and a training camp.[4] According to Zaid Haider, writing in Asian Surveys, when the Pakistani government first closed the facility in 2000 "hundreds of Uighurs becamse homeless."

According to a report prepared for the Red Cross a 21-year-old Uyghur expatriate named Abdul Jalil was interviewed by them in Panjshir prison in 1999, after being captured by the Afghan Northern Alliance.[3] He was alleged to have been recruited to fight with the Taliban during a two-month stay in Kashgarabad.

The Pakistani government closed Kashgarabad and Hotanabad in 2000, and again in 2006.[2][4]

Anwar ul-Ulum Abud Hanifa

According to Starr, the Anwar ul-Ulum Abu Hanifa Madrassah was run by a Sheikh Serajuddin in Rawalpindi.[1] According to the Red Cross report a second Uyghur expatriate, 24-year-old Nur Ahmed, was recruited to join the Taliban while at Anwar ul-Ulum Abud Hanifa.[3] He was captured at the same time as Abdul Jalil, and was also held in the Panjshir prison.

Hotanabad

Like Kashgarabad, Hotanabad was shut down in both 2000 and 2006 based on Chinese concerns the facilities were serving to radicalize Uyghur expatriates and inspire them to mount militant attacks back home in Xinjiang.[2][4]

Afghanistan

When the United States commenced hostilities against Afghanistan, in retaliation for the Taliban hosting al Qaeda, the perpetrators of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, they bombed a compound of Uyghurs in Nangarhar Province. American intelligence analysts initially claimed the compound was an "ETIM training camp".[5]

Benjamin Wittes and his colleagues at the Brookings Institution published several papers analyzing the justifications offered for holding captives in Guantanamo.[6] One of the papers, entitled "The Current Detainee Population of Guantánamo: An Empirical Study" pointed out that the authors of the memos that offered justifications for holding captives treated a stay in a suspicious guest house just as seriously as if they were al Qaeda or Taliban safehouse. The paper listed 130 captives whose continued detention had been justified by a stay in a suspicious guest house, or a Taliban or al Qaeda guesthouse. That list included five Uyghurs who faced the allegation that they had stayed in Uyghur guesthouses.[7][8][9][10][11] The Uyghurs Wittes and his colleagues listed included Ahmad Tourson, Bahtiyar Mahnut, Abdul Ghappar Abdul Rahman, Emam Abdulahat and Ahmad Muhamman Yaqub. Bahtiyar Mahnut, Emam Abdulahat and Ahmad Muhamman Yaqub faced allegations they each stayed at a Uyghur guest house in Jalalabad. Ahmad Tourson faced the allegation that he stayed at a guest house in Kabul run by the East Turkistan Islamic Movement, a Uyghur separatist group. An additional Uyghur captive, Abdal Razak Qadir, faced the allegation that he was given a gun in order to guard the East Turkistan Organization safe house in Jalalbat [sic], but was not named on the list compiled by Wittes and his colleagues.[12]

The United States Supreme Court's June 12, 2008 ruling in Boumediene v. Bush restored the Guantanamo captives' access to traditional habeas corpus's petitions. In September 2008 the executive branch filed a motion on the Uyghur captives' combined habeas petition stating that they would no longer try to defend the allegations they had offered to justify the Uyghurs' continued detention.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 S. Frederick Starr (2004-04-30). Xinjiang: China's Muslim borderland. M.E. Sharpe. ISBN 978-0-7656-1318-9. Retrieved 2010-04-29. Beijing suspected that the Chinese-made explosives used in terrorist incidents in Xinjiang had been exported from its own territory via Pakistan to Afghanistan. It also came to view Pakistan as a haven for Uyghurs who had fled there either directly from Xinjiang or indirectly, usually through Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, where the Pakistani consulates provided them with visas. It believed that Uyghur community centers in Pakistan had give shelter to refugees who then enrolled in Islamist madrassahs there. One such center is "Kashgarabad," a large guest house in Islamabad run by wealthy Uyghur traders. Another is the Anwar ul-Ulum Abu Hanifa Madrassah in Rawalpindi. line feed character in |quote= at position 118 (help)
  2. 1 2 3 "EDITORIAL: Uighur terrorism in Pakistan". Daily Times (Pakistan). 2006-06-27. Retrieved 2010-04-29. After receiving complaints earlier, the president had ordered the removal of two Uighur camps called Kashgarabad and Hotanabad near the capital. The centres had been there for many years following the liberal Chinese policy of allowing the Uighurs to perform Hajj via the Pakistan route. The terrorists had penetrated these camps. Islamabad’s policy toughened further after the president announced on TV that Uighurs had been found among the terrorists killed in Waziristan.
  3. 1 2 3 Julie R. Sirrs (1999-10). "REPORT ON FOREIGN POW'S(Prisonners of War) HELD BY THE ANTI-TALIBAN FORCES". Multimania. Retrieved 2010-04-29. Abdul Jalil is from Kashgar in Xinjiang province. He came from China first to Karachi and then to Islamabad. He traveled to Pakistan to attend a religious school since none reportedly are available in China. While in Islamabad, Abdul Jalil stayed in Kashgarabad – a large building and guest house run by wealthy Uighur traders for other Uighurs. Check date values in: |date= (help)
  4. 1 2 3 Zaid Haider (2005). "Sino-Pakistan relations and Xinjiang's Uyghurs: Politics, Trade, and Islam along the Karakoram Highway" (PDF). Asian Survey. pp. 522–545. doi:10.1525/as.2005.45.4.522. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2013-02-11. On the ground, Uighur settlements and markets in Pakistani cities have been closed, although some have reopened. In December 2000, the Pakistani army closed two Uighur community centers called Kashgarabad and Hotanabad that had provided shelter for Uighur immigrants in Pakistan for decades. As a result, hundreds of Uighurs became homeless. According to the Uighur American Organization, when the Uighurs asked why the centers were being closed, the army officials told them that “the Pakistan government was pressured by China.”
  5. ↑ JTF-GTMO-JIG (2004-10-30). "Uighur Detainee Population at JTF-GTMO". Joint Task Force Guantanamo. Retrieved 2010-03-16. DoD URL – pages 28–34
  6. ↑ Benjamin Wittes, Zaahira Wyne (2008-12-16). "The Current Detainee Population of Guantánamo: An Empirical Study" (PDF). The Brookings Institution. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2010-04-28. If the government’s allegations against detainees are uniformly credited, the following picture of the current population emerges ... 130 stayed in Al Qaeda, Taliban, or other guest- or safehouses.
  7. ↑ OARDEC (2005-08-11). "Unclassified Summary of Evidence for Administrative Review Board in the case of Tourson, Ahmad" (PDF). United States Department of Defense. pp. 48–50. Retrieved 2007-12-14. While in Kabul, the detainee stayed at a guesthouse run by the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM). fast mirror
  8. ↑ OARDEC (23 August 2005). "Unclassified Summary of Evidence for Administrative Review Board in the case of Mahnut, Bahtiyar" (PDF). United States Department of Defense. pp. 51–53. Retrieved 2008-04-15. The detainee stayed in a Uighur guesthouse in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.
  9. ↑ OARDEC (2004-10-29). "Summary of Evidence for Combatant Status Review Tribunal – Abdul Rahman, Abdul Ghappar". United States Department of Defense. Retrieved 2010-05-09. The detainee stayed at a Uighur guesthouse in Pakistan.
  10. ↑ OARDEC (8 November 2004). "Summary of Evidence for Combatant Status Review Tribunal – Abdulahat, Emam" (PDF). United States Department of Defense. pp. 38–39. Retrieved 2007-12-19. The detainee stayed in a Uighur guesthouse in Jalalabad. fast mirror
  11. ↑ OARDEC (2006-04-07). "Unclassified Summary of Evidence for Administrative Review Board in the case of Mohamed, Ahmed" (PDF). United States Department of Defense. pp. 98–100. Retrieved 2007-12-19. The detainee stayed in a Uighur house in Jalalabad, Afghanistan and then went to Tora Bora, Afghanistan where the detainee received training at a Uighur training camp. fast mirror
  12. ↑ OARDEC (24 October 2005). "Unclassified Summary of Evidence for Administrative Review Board in the case of Abdal Razak Qadir" (PDF). United States Department of Defense. pp. 62–63. Retrieved 2007-12-18. The detainee was given a machine gun to defend himself and the East Turkistan Organization safe house in Jalabat [sic], Afghanistan.
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