Four men believed to be connected to the Islamic State (IS, previously ISIS) movement were arrested in Indonesia this Monday.
The fighters were originally believed to be Turks, however after a day of investigating, Indonesian police discovered that the four men's passports had been forged, and the men have now been identified as Uighur Muslims from the western Xinjiang region of China. Their forged passports are thought to have originated in Thailand, where the men reportedly paid USD1,000 for each passport to be made.
Indonesia's national police chief Surarman claims that the suspects wanted to meet with Santoso, the leader of a jihadist group known as the Eastern Indonesia Mujahadeen. Whether the suspects had traveled to Indonesia for training or to carry out attacks still remains under investigation.
Earlier this month, photos of a captured Islamic State fighter who is believed to be a Chinese citizen began circulating around the internet earlier this month after photos were posted on a Facebook page identified as belonging to the Iraqi Ministry of Defense, reported the South China Morning Post. The post used the term "Chinese daash," daash being an Arabic acronym for ISIS. The Chinese embassy in Iraq, however, has refused to comment on the identity of the man.
Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Julie Bishop publicly called for China and Russia to support US-led military strikes against IS yesterday, saying that strikes against ISIS and any other radical jihadist groups in the region would be in defense of the Kurdish and Iraqi forces.
"I hope that China and Russia will see that a prudent and proportionate role is appropriate and that our efforts will be with the consent and in full coordination with the Iraqi government," said Bishop in an interview for the Wall Street Journal. China is yet to acknowledge a proposal to participate in a US-led coalition to fight IS, which was delivered by US national security advisor Susan Rice last week.
However, analysts suggest that China will not veto the proposal in the UN Security Council as it has hitherto done, thus lending Washington its "quiet" support.
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