China claims up to 300 Chinese Muslims, mostly from the Muslim majority Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, are fighting for ISIS in Syria and Iraq and that supporters of these militants are inciting the relentless violence plaguing this region.

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A report by New America, a non-partisan think tank in Washington, DC, concludes that 114 Muslim Chinese Uyghurs entered Islamic State territory in Syria and Iraq between mid-2013 and mid-2014. The Uyghurs are a Turkic ethnic group in Eastern and Central Asia who have lived in Xinjiang for over 1,000 years.

China's claim that these 300 Chinese Muslims are hardened jihadists, however, is being dismissed by New America and other analysts, however. Most of these Uyghurs with the Islamic State are dirt poor farmers who fled with their families to ISIS-controlled territories in the hope of a better life.

The New America report revealed that Uyghur Islamic State fighters are poor and uneducated. These people have the skill level of construction workers on average. The youngest registered Uyghur fighter is 10 years-old while the oldest is 80.

The report also noted the Uyghur recruits were entirely new to jihad. Of the 114 recruits, 110 said they didn't have any previous experience with jihad.

Of this total, 70 percent said they had never left China before heading for the Islamic State. The report concludes these Uyghurs aren't part of traditional Islamic separatist movements that have existed in China for some time.

This finding belies China's claim many of these Uyghur fighters belong to separatist movements such as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) that China and the United States have branded a terrorist organization. Beijing often blames the unrest in Xinjiang on ETIM.

Chinese repression of the Muslim Uyghurs intensified after 2009 when ethnic riots in Xinjiang's regional capital of Urumqi erupted between Uighurs and Han, China's majority ethnic group. Almost 200 persons, mostly Uyghurs, died in the ensuing violence.

Tags'Chinese Muslims', Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, china, New America, Uyghurs, ISIS, Islamic State