The East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) is a militant separatist organization that uses violence to achieve its goal of establishing an independent state called "East Turkistan" in China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR). The group was reportedly founded by Hasan Mahsum, a Uighur from Xinjiang, and its first mention surfaced around 2000. ETIM's core mechanism is terrorism, which it employs to accelerate its nationalist-separatist and religious extremist objectives. The group has carried out terrorist acts, including bombing buses, cinemas, and markets, and has attempted to sabotage the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.
ETIM is closely connected to global jihadist networks, having maintained close ties with the Taliban and Al-Qaida since its establishment. Its funding has historically come from Usama bin Laden and Al-Qaida, as well as from organized crime like drug trafficking and arms smuggling. ETIM was listed by the United Nations Security Council on September 11, 2002, for being associated with Al-Qaida and the Taliban. The group is also known by the name Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), and its fighters have operated in regions like South Asia, Central Asia, and more recently, Syria.
A significant recent change occurred in November 2020, when the United States removed ETIM from its Terrorism Exclusion List. The U.S. State Department cited a lack of credible evidence that ETIM continues to exist for more than a decade as the reason for the revocation. However, the group remains listed as a terrorist entity by the UN Security Council. ETIM's leader, Hasan Mahsum, was killed by Pakistani troops in October 2003. The group's current leader is Abdul Haq, who was also a member of Al-Qaida's Shura Council as of 2005.