This is incredibly funny to me for a few reasons, namely that the Bush administration basically initially designated ETIM as a terrorist organization as a concession to the Chinese in exchange for using airfields in Central Asia and limiting critique of the US war in Iraq. ETIM were a fairly small fry ‘mujahideen’ group that kicked up a fuss briefly in a small township in Xinjiang before operating very small groups in Afghanistan…As a consequence of the designation, many Uyghur organizations that had previously nothing to do with Islamism or even much in the way of separatism were suddenly grouped into an umbrella group UNDER the ETIM, which was basically a green light from the Bush administration for China to securitize Xinjiang and crack down on dissenting factions under the label of the global War on Terror.

AND of course as a kicker, ETIM went from small fry shits to getting some major cred as an Islamist organization worthy of opposition from both the US AND China, so once discontent grew in Xinjiang as a result of all these new policies, they had their arms wide open, thus all their atrocities in Syria. Another consequence of the mindlessness of the US’s War on Terror, and obviously now just a good way to irritate the Chinese.