A terrorist group believed to be made up of followers of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) are joining forces with ISIL with plans to launch bloody attacks back in China, according to footage released and analysed by the US-based SITE Intelligence Group on Monday. Shot in a training camp in western Iraq, the half-hour video clip appears to be the first evidence of a direct threat leveled by ISIL against China.

CGTN observed a group of young boys, believed to be of the Uygur ethnic minority, training to fight using hand to hand combat and AK47s, as well as giving speeches and praying in the one minute clip available online. SITE said that the rest of the footage shows an ETIM fighter issuing threats against China, as well as images of riot police patrolling streets in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous region, a Chinese national flag in flames and alleged informants being executed. 

"You Chinese who do not understand what people say. We are the soldiers of the Caliphate, and we will come to you to clarify to you with the tongues of our weapons, to shed blood like rivers and avenging the oppressed," the message was delivered as such according to SITE's translation.

It is the first time that Uygur-speaking militants have claimed allegiance to ISIL, according to AFP citing Dr Michael Clarke, an expert on Xinjiang at the National Security College of Australian National University. He believed that the video showed China is now "very firmly a target of jihadist rhetoric", while it rarely figured in statements by global jihadists in the past. 

While asked about the footage at a press conference Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said that he had not seen the footage, but reiterated China's stance of opposing "any form of terrorism and proactively participating in international cooperation to crack down on terrorism".

“We have long said that East Turkestan forces are a serious threat to China’s security and we are willing to work with the international community to jointly crack down on East Turkestan separatist and terrorist forces,” said Geng.

ETIM is an extremist separatist organization committed to establishing an independent state called East Turkestan. China has suffered terrorist attacks in the past related to the group in Xinjiang as well in other provinces. The Kunming attack in 2014 was one of the most notorious: over 10 assailants armed with knives, wearing uniforms and scarves, swept through the city's railway station, killing 29 civilians and injuring another 113. 

Previously allied with Al-Qaeda, the group's recent alliance with ISIL could "intensify the threat to China," as it indicated ETM fighters may be able to tap into the capabilities of both ISIL and al-Qaeda, Dr Michael Clarke suggested.