indicate that between mid-2013 and mid-2014, 114 Uighurs, almost all from China, joined the group.

As with other communities across the Islamic world, Isis has reached out to this community, or at least has prominently featured Uighurs in propaganda campaigns.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of Isis, has prominently criticised Chinese oppression of Muslims while laying out a vision of an Islamic caliphate stretching from Morocco to Xinjiang. The group has also released suicide attackers identified as “Chinese brothers”.

The appeal has fallen on fertile ground. There has been long running unrest among Uighurs in west China for many decades, where some view their culture and even land as under attack from Han Chinese “invaders”. This resentment led a tiny minority to become involved with Islamist extremism in Afghanistan and Pakistanin the 1980s and 1990s.

An extremist organisation, known as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), was formed. It was listed as a terrorist group by the US in 2002. Other factions emerged over the next decade, such as the Turkestan Islamic party (TIP), and were blamed for attacks in China.

At the same time Uighur diaspora communities, particularly in central Asia, were exposed to waves of Islamist activism too. In recent years Uighurs have been blamed a car attack on pedestrians in Beijing, a bombing and mass knifings in Chinese cities. There has also been evidence of growing international connections and capabilities.

The mind of Islamic State: more coherent and consistent than Nazism | Robert Manne

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China has accused Uighur groups of recruiting among Uighur communities in central Asia, especially