Imtiaz Gul
Within a week of October 29 2+2 US-India Dialogue at New Delhi, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo revoked the designation of East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) as a terrorist organization, apparently a message as part of US’s so-called “new cold war” with China.
The George W.Bush administration had then designated ETIM as a terror outfit in 2003, ostensibly to compel China to agree to the US invasion of Iraq. This US listing had used the official Chinese literature to justify the designation, and had claimed ETIM did ALL the violence in Xinjiang for previous ten years.
In an assessment last year, US officials reckoned with about 100 ETIM fighters in Afghanistan. A recent UN security council report put those numbers at at least 500 of the group operating in Afghanistan, primarily in the northern Badakhshan.
James Millward , a US multiple author of books on Xinjiang and China, called the delisting a good move but quipped that by “sneaking the de-listing out today, when US is preoccupied with election, is no coincidence,” Pompeo has sent a clear message to Beijing.
One Twitter observer criticised the move as “weaponising counterterrorism designations in the “new cold war era.”
“Whilst the world is distracted by the ongoing drama and controversy of the U.S. presidential election, the U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made a very quiet but sinister move,” Chinese broadcaster CGTN wrote in a fierce reaction to the US MOVE.
ETIM’s stronghold in northern Afghanistan also resonated at a day-long Pakistan-Afghanistan-China symposium on counter-terrorism security. Chinese experts and officials repeatedly referred to the ETIM “headquarters” in Afghanistan and hoped the country
“ ETIM is a big threat to the security of Xinjiang and the mainland China,” Chen Zhimin, President of China Friendship Association (CAF). “They committed crimes in all three countries and we should intensify our intelligence cooperation to combat the group,” he underlined.
This makes the anti-terrorism into our common goal and necessitates regional security and intelligence cooperation, Zhimin said.
He called for greater use of IT and big data intelligence in the anti-terror war. “Terrorists use the internet , videoconferencing for terror plots, why cant we use the same for countering them and preventing their attacks, he asked.
The delisting of ETIM came within a week of the October 29 2+2 US-India Dialogue at New Delhi, where US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense secretary Mark Esper held the dialogue with Defense Minister Rajnath Singh and External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar.
Unsurprisingly, in typical self-serving manner, Pompeo singled out China for several reasons:
“Our leaders and citizens see with increasing clarity that Chinese Communist Party is no friend to democracy, rule of law, transparency… I’m glad to say India and US are taking all steps to strengthen cooperation against all threats and not just those posed by CCP,” he said.
The US and India are taking steps to strengthen our cooperation against all manner of threats and not just those posed by Chinese Communist Party. “Last year, we have expanded our cooperation on cyber issues, and our navies have held joint exercises in the Indian Ocean,” Pompeo said.
Does this explain, on the one hand, the ever-growing Indo-US geo-political cooperation. And on the other, the possible use of anti-state groups such as ETIM / ISIS or AQ, for destabilizing the region and to counter China through poxy groups?
ETIM is among the 20 or so terror outfits that Kabul government often speaks about, including of course Daesh/ISIS and Al-Qaeda. The only plausible explanation for these terror groups is their proxy nature, driven externally. As recently reiterated also by Dr. Moeed Yusuf, Pakistan’s advisor on national security, this externally sponsored terrorism continues to fuel conflict and hold peace hostage. India shall have to come to terms with the reality that Pakistan by virtue of being the next door neighbor was and will remain unavoidable for Afghanistan.
