There is a blood red thread that connects Syria to China passing through Palestine. A thread that winds through mountainous landscapes of the province of Idlib, continues among the Palestinian refugee camps, to reach the northern region of Xinjiang. The Uyghurs live here, a Turkic ethnic group of Islamic religion, always in open conflict with the Beijing regime, accused of racial and religious persecution.
Since the Syrian conflict began thousands of Chinese Muslims they decided to abandon their lands (which they call East Turkestan) to follow the call of international jihadism. In Syria they formed a battalion, Katibat al-Ghuraba al Turkistan (KGT), made up almost entirely of Chinese. Unlike other foreign jihadists, Uyghurs don't move alone, but they bring their wives and children with them. During the conflict they formed a separate unit within the Islamist galaxy. Often allied with Al-Qaeda and similar, other times they instead preferred to act in concert with the Islamic State. Those who have had the opportunity to meet them in recent years have described them as an extremely closed group in which almost no one speaks the Arabic language. Abu Darda al-Shami, member of the extremist group Jund al-Aqsa, he declared that the Uighurs “fight like lions in land offensives. I can say this with certainty after having fought with them in many battles in the North".
Very active on social media, the KGT men say they are ready to fight to the death and in all likelihood they will keep this promise since they will not be able to return to their homeland alive. In recent months it has been the Uyghurs who have kept the morale of all the rebel forces entrenched in Idlib high, the Chinese are the first to enter the fray and the last to retreat. Slowly, but in an inexorable way, the KGT was able to establish itself among the ranks of the jihadist groups active in Syria as the real leader of the last pocket of rebel resistance in Idlib.
However, defeating Bashar Assad and his allies does not appear to be the main objective of these fighters. In their messages and propaganda videos showing their actions on the field, the KTG promotes, from Syria, the cause of Xinjiang's secession, their homeland. The message is then directed to their co-religionists who remained in China and threatens them, albeit indirectly, is aimed at Beijing.
For this reason the Chinese government has decided, last December, Of send some men from the special units “Night tigers” in support of the Syrian army units, tasked with flushing out the five thousand Uyghur "lions" from their dens in the mountains of Latakia. «These people are not only fighting alongside international terrorist forces in Syria, but they will return to China and pose a threat to national security in our country.", Li Wei said, director of Cicir (Institute for Arms Security and Control Studies).
The red thread that connects Syria to China also passes through the Palestinian refugee camps. In fact, a few days ago the KGT announced the creation of its own Palestinian sub-unit which took the name of Saraya Ghuraba Filistin (SGF). This new armed wing was designed to host other Arabs within the predominantly Uyghur group, predominantly Palestinians. Some observers hypothesize that the creation of the new Arab-Palestinian unity is directly linked to the internal fighting between rebel groups that broke out a few months ago in the provinces of Hama and Idlib.
He is at the head of the new Sino-Palestinian formation Abu Muhammad al-Filistini, a Palestinian jihadist probably linked to Hamas. In an audio message released a few hours after the announcement of the creation of the SGF, al-Filistini incited the Palestinian refugee camp of 'Ayn al-Hilweh to revolt, in Lebanon. “We remember our brothers in Lebanon and in the 'Ayn al-Hilwe camp, we call them to the land of jihad. This is the blessed land in Syria”, he proclaimed. A call to arms that should not be surprising: 'Ayn al-Hilweh has a long history as a breeding ground for Islamist militants and a dark reputation as a hotbed of extremism. At the end of 2013 Al-Qaeda had even made official the presence of its own branch inside the camp. It is unclear how many Palestinians in SGF come from refugee camps inside Syria or from foreign countries. However, Filistini's speech directly stated that he and many of his followers did not come from Syria. But his first public speech was directed at Lebanon, and in particular at the Ain el Helwe camp, it is likely that many of Saraya Ghuraba Filistin's fighters come from that camp. The appeal of the new Palestinian leader apparently achieved consensus. Last Friday (9 February) clashes occurred right inside the refugee camp in Lebanon. Agencies report at least one radical Islamist killed, while some houses caught fire during clashes between jihadists present inside the camp and Lebanese security forces tasked with maintaining order in the area. The objective of the SGF Salafists is probably to bring further chaos to an already extremely tense Lebanon due to threats coming from Israel.
The history of the Middle East has taught us how the Palestinian cause is used as mere propaganda by each of the protagonist states in the region and the Syrian conflict is no exception to this. Each of the actors involved in the war in Syria has at least one contingent of Palestinian militants. Assad's army boasts among its ranks the fearsome "Jerusalem Brigade" which contributed together with the Shiites of Hebollah to the liberation of Aleppo, Daesh had units made up only of Palestinian fighters. Iran is trying in every way to ingratiate itself with Hamas which, however, has said loud and clear that it does not support the Syrian regime in the slightest, ally of the ayatollahs. It is into this extremely intricate picture that Chinese Muslims also fit in while the red thread that unites this tormented part of the world continues to bleed.

 
Source: http://www.occhidellaguerra.it/nasce-un-gruppo-jihadista-formato-cinesi-palestinesi/