By Clare M. Lopez
With all the recent attention focused on where and how to release Guantanamo Bay detainees, the case of 17 imprisoned Uyghurs has grabbed headlines again. Massachusetts Democratic Congressmen Jim McGovern and Bill Delahunt think that at least some of these Uyghurs should be resettled right here in the United States (U.S.), maybe even in the Virginia suburbs. Speaking in late May 2009 at a world assembly of Uyghurs at the U.S. Capitol, Delahunt offered some reassuring words: “The Uyghur people are not enemies of America. In fact, I know you admire our fundamental ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness….” How quaint. And how dangerously wrong.
The Uyghurs held at GITMO were captured while fleeing a terror training camp in eastern Afghanistan that was run by the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), a splinter faction of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM). ETIM is listed as a terrorist organization by the governments of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Kazakhstan, Pakistan, and the U.S., as well as the United Nations. The TIP may also be another name for the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), an Islamic terrorist group opposed to the secular regime of Uzbekistan President Islom Karimov and dedicated to the establishment of Islamic rule there and across Central Asia. Heavily suppressed in Uzbekistan, the IMU may have been eradicated inside that country, but its fighters have surfaced in Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and elsewhere. Many of them joined the Taliban in Afghanistan pre-2001 and remain a presence in terrorist training camps along the Afghan-Pakistan border. Read more ...
With all the recent attention focused on where and how to release Guantanamo Bay detainees, the case of 17 imprisoned Uyghurs has grabbed headlines again. Massachusetts Democratic Congressmen Jim McGovern and Bill Delahunt think that at least some of these Uyghurs should be resettled right here in the United States (U.S.), maybe even in the Virginia suburbs. Speaking in late May 2009 at a world assembly of Uyghurs at the U.S. Capitol, Delahunt offered some reassuring words: “The Uyghur people are not enemies of America. In fact, I know you admire our fundamental ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness….” How quaint. And how dangerously wrong.
The Uyghurs held at GITMO were captured while fleeing a terror training camp in eastern Afghanistan that was run by the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), a splinter faction of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM). ETIM is listed as a terrorist organization by the governments of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Kazakhstan, Pakistan, and the U.S., as well as the United Nations. The TIP may also be another name for the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), an Islamic terrorist group opposed to the secular regime of Uzbekistan President Islom Karimov and dedicated to the establishment of Islamic rule there and across Central Asia. Heavily suppressed in Uzbekistan, the IMU may have been eradicated inside that country, but its fighters have surfaced in Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and elsewhere. Many of them joined the Taliban in Afghanistan pre-2001 and remain a presence in terrorist training camps along the Afghan-Pakistan border. Read more ...
Source: FSM
Bill Delahunt
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