The Turkistan Islamic Party, an al Qaeda-affiliated terror group, has released two videos over the past several months that glorify suicide attacks in Afghanistan. The group also identified several other fighters who were killed while fighting in Afghanistan.
Both videos were released by Islami Awazi, a propaganda arm of the Turkistan Islamic Party, and were obtained and translated by the SITE Intelligence Group.
The most recent video was "posted on a TIP-affiliated website on May 24, 2013," according to SITE. The video featured the suicide bomber, who was identified as Nuruddin and is is also known as Mehmet.
"Allah willing, we are planning this operation so to make the religion of Allah the Almighty supreme and predominant in the world, and to make polytheism disappear from the surface of the earth, and to make His religion the only religion on earth," Nuruddin said in Turkish, according to SITE.
Footage of Nuruddin carrying out his suicide attack is shown. The date and location of the attack were not disclosed.
The other video was released on Feb. 7 on a TIP-affiliated website, and featured a suicide bomber who is known as Muaz Kurdi and Yunus. Also featured in the Feb. 7 video is footage of TIP fighters training and conducting military operations in Afghanistan.
"Until you believe the unity of Allah, there is a great rage between you and us," Muaz Kurdi says in the video, before he carried out his suicide attack. "Until you believe in the Almighty, there will be a great rage and hatred between you and us."
Although the exact date and location of Muaz Kurdi's suicide attack were not disclosed, the TIP indicated he was killed sometime in 2011.
The video also praised "our Turkish brothers who emigrated from Turkey to the land of Khorasan and were martyred in our group."
The slain Turkish fighters were identified as Usame Turki (killed in 2007); Ebu Bekir Turki (2009); Davud Turki (2009); Usame Kurdi (2010); Ahmet Turki (2010); Ammar Kurdi (2010); and Zaza Dadullah (2012).
The Turkistan Islamic Party operates in China as well as in Central and South Asia, and is thought to have scores of fighters in Pakistan's tribal areas and in Afghanistan. In April the TIP released a video of children training at one of their camps in Pakistan's tribal areas.
TIP fighters have been targeted and killed by Coalition forces in Afghanistan and by US drone strikes in Pakistan. Abu Ubaydah Abdullah al Adam, a senior al Qaeda leader who serves as the terror group's intelligence chief, has written several biographies for TIP fighters killed in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Adam is thought to have been killed in a drone strike in mid-April.
The group's leaders also hold senior positions in al Qaeda. Abdul Haq al Turkistani, the slain former leader of the Turkistan Islamic Party, was a member of al Qaeda's Shura Majlis, or executive council. And Abdul Shakoor al Turkistani, who was rumored to have been killed in a drone strike last year, is also thought to have been appointed to the Shura Majlis, in addition to being designated commander of al Qaeda forces in the tribal areas.
Prior to the US invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, Abdul Haq ran a training camp for his recruits at al Qaeda's camp in Tora Bora in Afghanistan's Nangarhar province [see LWJ report, The Uighurs in their own words]. He later reestablished camps for the Turkistan Islamic Party in Pakistan's lawless, Taliban-controlled tribal areas. Twenty-two Turkistan Islamic Party operatives were ultimately captured and detained at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility; since then, 17 of them have been released or transferred to allied governments, and five have been approved for release but have refused resettlement in volunteer countries.