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There is a lot of talk about the Uyghurs of Xinjiang, but much less about those living outside China. How many are there and where do they live?
The worldwide Uyghur population is estimated at around 12 million today, most of whom reside in China, primarily in the Xinjiang region. The core of the diaspora is centered in Kazakhstan, Turkey, and the United States. In Turkey, for instance, there are about 40,000 Uyghurs, and there are also communities in Afghanistan.
What role does Syria play in this diaspora?
In Syria, the community has quickly grown to about 20,000 people, men, women and children, many of whom were born there.
Beijing remains very cautious about Syria’s reconstruction. Should we read this as the weight of the Uyghur issue?
China has always been reluctant to invest in Syria, even before the Uyghur question arose. It will not rush in. Beyond Turkey, the countries that have actually acted on their words are Saudi Arabia and, to some extent, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. Certainly, China could fill the gap, since foreign investments in Syria’s reconstruction are insufficient. But the situation remains too unstable. Moreover, Beijing has never really understood Syria well and has never trusted it, despite some rapprochements with Assad.
Nevertheless, the presence of Uyghurs does concern Beijing. During the two visits by Chinese officials to Damascus since the end of the civil war, the communiqués have repeatedly stressed these “terrorist elements in Syria.” Beijing does not wish for their return, but seeks a solution that would allow the Uyghurs to remain in Syria under conditions that would prevent them from posing a threat to China.
What exactly is Beijing negotiating with the Syrian government?
Everything hinges on the details that are the subject of ongoing negotiations. Damascus has other priorities at the moment and is not in a hurry to conclude these talks. The Uyghurs, for their part, sincerely wish to obtain Syrian citizenship. The new government is indeed willing to issue them passports to reward their loyalty and their commitment to the groups associated with Ahmed al-Charaa during the civil war.
Beijing thus asks how to prevent Uyghurs from using these passports to travel to China or neighboring countries, and whether there exists a way to restrict their political rights in Syria. Damascus has not accepted anything yet, but Beijing will surely press on this point so that the Uyghurs cannot organize protests against China from Syria, nor mobilize the diaspora in Europe and the rest of the Middle East.
Assad has fallen; is their struggle against Beijing still their project, or is it becoming an increasingly theoretical horizon?
The Uyghurs form a heterogeneous group, both in China and in Syria. Within this community of about 20,000 people, viewpoints, religious beliefs and political values are diverse. Publicly, certain senior leaders say: “We continue to prepare for the day when the opportunity arises to attack China. We must be ready and militarily trained, equipped with weapons, a plan and a strategy to attack the Chinese government in some way.”
Logistical questions then arise. How would they reach China? How would they confront the world’s second-largest military power?
Between the dream of an Uyghur state and settling in Syria, which one governs today?
Most Uyghurs, especially their children—particularly those born in Syria—will not renounce, ideologically, the goal of one day founding an independent Uyghur state. This remains the unifying principle of this community, which is otherwise extremely diverse and heterogeneous.
But in everyday life, everything suggests they are becoming Syrians, building homes and shaping a life in Syria. They send their children to Syrian schools.
Does this still-fragile settlement force them to pause their plans against China?
Indeed, their situation in Syria remains precarious for the time being. Although they are considered supporters of the new president who wields significant influence over the country, they could one day be expelled. They are not highly regarded by the other Syrians.
Attacks on civilians in China would jeopardize their own status in Syria: Damascus would not tolerate it. When I asked senior Uyghur leaders whether they had orchestrated deadly attacks against civilians in China, they vehemently denied it.
They have been preoccupied with the Syrian civil war and have had very poor Internet access for most of the past fourteen years. The war has claimed many of their lives; they faced enormous pressure to survive and to aid the rebel groups. It is hard to imagine that they could or would plan terrorist attacks in China, a country so distant and among the most secure in the world.
Strategically, the Uyghurs are primarily concerned with how to consolidate their position in Syria. They now number 20,000 men, women and children whose future depends on political decisions negotiated today with Damascus. Yet Damascus has promised Beijing not to allow Uyghurs to use Syrian territory to develop plans that would threaten China’s national interests.
How are they perceived in Syria?
That depends on the Syrians. If you live in Idlib province in the north of Syria, where the Uyghurs first settled and where most still live, and if you knew the so-called “salvation government” largely led by Ahmed al-Charaa before he became head of the country, you would meet Uyghurs constantly and perhaps even hold a favorable view of them. The Uyghurs were seen as incorruptible, highly disciplined, very respectful, very conservative, and very religious. They were clearly a bit strict socially, but they were part of everyday life.
But the civil war fractured Syria into zones where free movement was impossible. If you live in Aleppo, Damascus, or further south, you may never have met a Uyghur and may have only heard stories about their fearsome reputation, their effectiveness as foreign fighters, and their religious conservatism. There is thus a great deal of fear and anxiety towards them, as well as towards foreign fighters in general, in these cities.
And for religious minorities, what do these foreign fighters represent?
The Alawites, Druze, Shia Muslims and Christians are extremely uneasy about foreign fighters. They see them as ultra-conservative Sunni Muslims who regard them as infidels. They are also deeply concerned by the new government that empowers these fighters, uses them, and in a way shares a religious ideological framework with them.
In general, I would say Uyghurs are not well-liked by these various groups. They’re foreigners, not Arabs. Thus a widespread perception, including among Syrians who supported the rebel cause, is that despite their gratitude toward the foreign fighters who helped topple the Assad regime, it is time for them to leave.
In March 2025, Uyghurs were accused of participating in massacres of Alawites on the coast. Has the official inquiry shed any light on this?
The government did conduct an inquiry. It, however, did not inspire much trust. Few details were made public. The public is therefore not convinced that all the culprits have been held to account.
Reuters also conducted an inquiry into the coast massacres, which mainly targeted Alawite civilians, and reported that some witnesses believed Uyghurs had participated. For my part, I found no evidence of this, and Uyghurs themselves stated that they had absolutely no interest in becoming involved in internal confessional matters, as they are a vulnerable population. Their future presence in Syria depends on whether the Syrians will allow them to stay or not.
Where do these accusations come from?
A possible explanation is that many Syrians I met confused Uzbeks and Uyghurs. They did not realize that these two groups are different, come from different places, speak different but related languages, and fought in distinct groups. It is quite possible that Uzbeks were mistaken for Uyghurs.
Moreover, reports, including Reuters’, describe Uyghur fighters acting individually and collaborating with regime leaders to massacre civilians. Yet Uyghurs do not fight individually. They always fight together. That struck me as suspicious.
Since the mass internment wave of 2017, Xinjiang has become almost opaque. What else can we know about what happens there?
It is difficult to know exactly what is going on, as there are very few reports on the subject. Journalists have trouble accessing Xinjiang, though they are theoretically free to travel there. It is nearly impossible to report freely and have a real conversation with someone on the ground, especially if that person is Uyghur. I myself left China in 2022, so I am no longer on the ground, either in China or in Xinjiang.
We know, however, that a large number of detention camps were closed after many Uyghurs followed what the Chinese authorities call “re-education programs.” Many were released and numerous temporary camps were closed.
Nevertheless, many Uyghurs were not released and disappeared into an expanding penal system. They were sentenced to official prison terms of 15, 20 or 25 years. The local penal system has grown substantially. As for the Uyghurs who were released, journalists who visited Xinjiang in the last two to three years reported that the atmosphere there remained tense, even if outwardly life seemed back to normal.
A normality for whom?
In reality, it is a return to normalcy for the Han Chinese, in the sense that people are back in the streets. During the detention campaigns, streets were noticeably emptier, as many Uyghurs had been imprisoned. Domestic tourism has also picked up. There is more movement from other provinces and regions toward Xinjiang since the end of the Covid-19 pandemic. These movements had almost ceased when detentions began, and then when the pandemic struck. The appearance of normal life, with its markets, shops and tourists, has now resumed.
But the Uyghurs live under substantial political pressure and surveillance. And after going through these “re-education” centers, many of them, I think, have had their morale crushed. They understand the risks they would face if they spoke out in any way. The forms of social control exercised on Uyghurs by the Party are incredibly intense and sophisticated.
Does this repression mark a rupture, or the culmination of a longer history?
It is the culmination of a long history, which accelerated with the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. Indeed, by the end of 1949, the People’s Liberation Army entered Xinjiang. At first, the Uyghurs harbored some hope: since their region was to become autonomous (it did so officially in 1955), they believed they would enjoy cultural, religious, and, to some extent, educational autonomy to preserve their identity and culture. But over the decades, this did not materialize.
Nearly every decade has seen a mass resistance or peaceful protest against Chinese authorities. Sometimes these demonstrations escalated into violence. The Uyghurs claimed that Chinese authorities had opened fire first. These clashes were invariably followed by a wave of arrests, repression and the implementation of even stricter controls on Uyghur culture and religion.
What caused some Uyghurs to move from protest to armed struggle?
The deadliest of these confrontations, in July 2009.
One of the central questions I asked while conducting this report, knowing it would be sensitive and unwelcome to many, was: why did these Uyghurs choose violence to oppose the Chinese Communist Party? Why would they leave everything behind to wage a war in a foreign country that was not theirs?
Almost all responded that the interethnic riots in Urumqi in July 2009 convinced them that peaceful coexistence with the Han was impossible and that the only language the Chinese Communist Party would take seriously was the language of violence. They thus concluded that it was time to take up arms, given that the People’s Republic of China itself had come into being in that manner: through war, by forming its own rebel army. The question then became where they could act: many chose Syria.
What in 2009 made the peaceful path unthinkable to them?
The Uyghurs took to the streets peacefully to protest the killing of two Uyghur workers at a factory in Guangdong in June 2009. They clashed with the police and the confrontations escalated into interethnic riots, which left nearly 200 dead according to the official tally, the majority of them Han.
The Uyghurs then concluded that peaceful demonstrations had never worked. Each decade they organized a peaceful protest and their political situation only worsened. They therefore concluded that it was time to take up arms, since the People’s Republic of China itself had come into being this way: by war, by forming its own rebel army. The question then arose of where they could operate: many chose Syria.
Others, as early as the late 1990s, had tried their luck in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The Uyghurs have a long history of mobility: along the Silk Road they long served as traders and interpreters among the Turkic-speaking peoples of Central Asia. The militants were no exception. From the late 1990s, small groups of Uyghurs travelled to the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan in the hope of training with local Islamist groups such as al-Qaeda and the Taliban. It was there that the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) was born.
Why didn’t Afghanistan become their base?
The experience was short-lived: very few of them survived. They were killed in clashes among groups at the Afghan border, but also during American bombardments. Pakistani authorities arrested more than twenty of them and transferred them to Guantanamo Bay, in coordination with Washington. The United States eventually acknowledged that they were not enemies and released them, but it took years. The conditions on the ground were so difficult that they could not undergo proper military training.
A few dozen Uyghurs who survived quickly understood that Afghanistan was not a good place to train. They left for Syria and, as far as I know, formed the first Uyghur fighting group in that country.
Beijing brands all of these fighters as ETIM, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement. Does this organization really exist?
The question remains open: is ETIM an organization with a central leadership, a centralized organizational structure and a hierarchy? It is undeniable that, over the past three decades, there has existed a loose network of Uyghur militant groups, loosely linked, sharing the objective of opposing the Chinese Communist Party and establishing an independent Uyghur state. China labels them all as members of this organization, ETIM. But it would be wiser to regard ETIM as a generic term designating this broader armed resistance movement, which could be described as an “Islamic nationalist liberation movement.”
Some of the Uyghurs who went to Syria came from Afghanistan or Pakistan, but for the majority, this was not the case. Most first went to Turkey, where they worked and studied, before hearing of Uyghurs crossing the land border to enter Syria.
Did the Syrian front and the Afghan front form a single movement?
There were contacts between the Uyghurs in Syria and those remaining in Afghanistan. They knew each other well and kept one another informed of their activities. But the Uyghurs in Syria, almost from the outset, greatly surpassed those in Afghanistan in numbers, capabilities, influence and activities.
Who are those who left everything for Syria?
One cannot generalize about the origins of Uyghurs who went to Syria, because they come from truly all backgrounds—socioeconomic, educational, and professional. There are people who never finished high school, construction workers, migrant laborers, farmers, but also doctorate holders, multi-millionaires, real estate developers, business leaders, and owners of logistics firms.
Did they leave first out of religious conviction?
Some were already practicing. Many came from families that could be described as culturally Muslim, but were largely secular. Their common thread was that they were all seeking a safe place to live, and they also believed, in their minds, that they could constructively fight the Chinese Communist Party and help Uyghurs still living in China.
Did the war radicalize them?
During the war, almost all became extremely observant. This is partly because the northern Syrian region where they live has always been more religious, more socially conservative, and more Sunni than the rest of the country. It is also partly because Uyghurs were denied the opportunity to explore religion, and people in Xinjiang are curious to discover what they consider a purer, more authentic form of Islam—which, in fact, is a kind of fundamentalist Islam that has spread through the Middle East over the past decades.
They thus adopted this highly fundamentalist form of Islam. And politically, in a certain sense, that benefited them, because it sustained their motivation during a very difficult civil war. It kept them united.
What struck me as interesting is that before leaving, many Uyghurs I met were religious only in a cultural sense. They celebrated Muslim holidays but did not pray regularly. Many had never attended a religious school. And many turned to religion because it offered an outlet when they lived in Xinjiang, an outlet in the face of discrimination and repression they endured.
What do they still have in common with the rest of the diaspora, which remains largely peaceful?
I think there are very few points of contact between the Uyghurs in Syria and the other diaspora communities.
And among other rebel groups, often Islamist as well, did they feel among their own?
There were initially language barriers. The Uyghurs had to learn Arabic, and many of them now speak it fluently. Their children born in Syria obviously speak it as their mother tongue.
There were ideological barriers in the sense that the Uyghurs had become very fundamentalist. They did not smoke, did not listen to music, did not dance. Their women wore full veils. At night, they prayed and went to bed early.
They fought alongside Syrians, many of whom were Sunni Islamists, but privately, on the front lines, these Syrians smoked, drank, played cards and listened to music. In the beginning, this shocked many Uyghurs who believed they were fighting alongside brothers in arms, both politically and religiously. “How is this possible? Are they true Muslims?” they asked themselves. They had to learn to open themselves to Syrians and to people from all backgrounds.
Who changed more: the Uyghurs or Syria?
One can see how much Syria transformed the Uyghurs. They themselves helped to change Syria, to change its government, but it is really Syria that shaped who they are today. They could have radicalized further. The Uyghurs in Afghanistan remained very fundamentalist. But the Uyghurs in Syria understood that they had to open up to collaboration with Syrians of all faiths. And they also knew that if they were ever to found their own Uyghur state, they would have to welcome Uyghurs from all walks of life.
Thus, today, most Uyghurs in Syria are not as religious as they once were, nor as socially conservative. Music, singing and poetry lie at the heart of their identity and culture. I was struck by how much they had given up of so many rules.
Has this evolution split the movement?
It eventually led to a split. The Uyghurs of Syria declared: “We are primarily a political entity. We are a nationalist movement, and we must emphasize our shared national identity over any religious identity. Religion cannot be a mandatory element in the future state we imagine, and we must focus on concrete things, such as building hospitals and schools, and providing housing for our people. We cannot devote so much time to religious matters.” Hence, a new generation of leaders emerged within the ranks of the Uyghurs in Syria, and there was some division between the Syrian and Afghan groups.
Did they simply follow Ahmed al-Charaa’s trajectory, from jihad to governing a territory?
Yes, the Uyghurs explain that they watched very closely everything Ahmed al-Charaa did with Hayat Tahrir al-Cham (HTS) and its “salvation government” in Idlib. They identified at least three major waves of reforms led by al-Charaa before he even became president of Syria, all of them positive in their eyes. All of them resulted in increased popular support and better governance.
They took from it that change and openness to different ideas were not bad things. They have immense respect for al-Charaa and are also very loyal to him. That is why he thanks them today by letting them stay in Syria.
Yet, they have still refused to officially join his coalition.
Yes, al-Charaa invited them to, but they believed they should remain independent because it was not their war. They offered help because, for them too, Bashar al-Assad was a monster, but their future lay in Xinjiang.
Did they influence the fall of Bashar al-Assad?
They played a decisive role. They were part of the five rebel groups invited to participate in an offensive initially designed simply to retake the city of Aleppo. No one expected to take Damascus, because everyone thought it was impossible. The Uyghurs were invited because they had proven themselves to be highly disciplined and effective. They were entrusted with the mission of disrupting the regime’s supply lines around the city of Aleppo.
I dedicated an entire chapter of my book to how they did it and how they developed a plan to dig subterranean tunnels to disrupt these supply chains from behind enemy lines. This assault on Aleppo went so well that the city was taken in a record time—two days—and the rebel groups started moving south.
No one was aiming for Damascus. How could the offensive reach that far?
The decision to continue south had to be made urgently by al-Charaa and his men. The Uyghurs were among those groups who said: “We do not want to stop, let’s go on.” They eventually became one of the first groups to enter Damascus in early December 2024. These rebels, who ousted the regime, may have numbered about 30,000 men—much less than most analysts had expected. And among these 30,000 men, about 3,000 were Uyghurs.
The Uyghurs thus constituted the largest foreign fighting force and accounted for about a tenth of the forces that took control of the country as a whole. Their role was truly decisive. Those who marched through the streets of Damascus in December 2024 told me: “We were determined to wage this war, but we never imagined we would personally manage to overthrow the Damascus government.”
And that reinforced their belief that, even if it did not happen in their lifetimes, that distant dream of one day attacking the Chinese government could become a reality—just as it had been possible to challenge the Assad regime.
You write that they identify with the Jewish people. How do they reconcile that with their support for the Palestinian cause?
The Uyghurs do not fit into any simple ideological pattern. They strongly support the Palestinian cause. As fellow Muslims, they closely follow what happens in Gaza and the West Bank. But they also study the history of Zionism and sincerely admire what Israel has achieved on political and military levels—beyond their religious and humanitarian concerns—because they see in the history of the Jewish people a parallel with their own destiny.
Islamists, pro-Americans, pro-Taiwan: how to categorize such a movement?
They are Islamists, but they are also open to non-Muslims. They are Islamists who use religious language, speak of the struggle, of holy war, who regard the members of the Chinese Communist Party as infidels. They use part of a vocabulary traditionally associated with jihad—though I think this is a very broad and loaded term. But they are also pro-American. They view the United States as their main ally in their fight against the Chinese Communist Party. They are very pro-Taiwan. They have said that in the event of Taiwan’s invasion, they would find a way to assist. Indeed, that might be the moment they choose to strike China.
We cannot simply classify them within the traditional category of Islamist militant groups.