Over 100 Chinese Fighters Have Joined Islamic State in Syria

International Security's "All Jihad is Local" was cited in the Wall Street Journal:

The research from the New America think tank and the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point focused on recruits registered by Islamic State entering Syria from Turkey from mid-2013 to mid-2014. It corroborates Chinese officials’ assertions that there are about 300 Uighurs fighting with Islamic State in both Syria and Iraq. It’s unclear if more Chinese fighters joined the group outside the period covered by the leaked documents.

However, the findings cast doubt on China’s frequent assertion that many Uighur militants had trained and worked with al Qaeda and other foreign groups over the last nearly two decades. One of the studies found none with former jihadist experience and the other found four, with two listing experience in Pakistan, one in Afghanistan and one in Xinjiang, which Uighur separatists call East Turkestan.