Mike Pompeo’s thinly-veiled call for an Islamic jihad against China during his visit to Indonesia last week was no mere rhetoric. The State Department made public on Nov. 5 that Pompeo had ordered the Al-Qaeda-affiliated “East Turkestan Islamic Movement” (ETIM) of Uighur separatists removed from the U.S. Terrorist Exclusion List on Oct. 20.
ETIM terrorists had wreaked havoc in Xinjiang province until Chinese authorities mounted an enormous effort to develop the province and pull its young people away from the terrorist recruiters. But to this day, there are perhaps as many as thousands of ETIM members fighting in Syria, brought there by Turkey, to fight on behalf of ISIS and al-Qaeda.
Yet, Radio Free Asia reported yesterday that the State Department had confirmed the ETIM’s removal from the terrorist list, lying that “for more than a decade, there has been no credible evidence that ETIM continues to exist.”
