There is little information about who these Uyghurs are and what they did; according to Radio Free Asia, Interior Minister Rehman Malik has divulged nothing more than the detainee’s alleged participation in the abovementioned “activities.” The news, however, did spawn some interviews between Radio Free Asia journalists and Uyghurs living in Pakistan and Turkey, where various members of the Uyghur diaspora speculated that the Uyghurs may have been captured in “Operation Black Thunder,” a military offensive by the Pakistani military directed at Taliban and Al-Qaeda forces in the Federally Administrated Tribal Areas.

One Pakistani newspaper wrote that the captured Uyghurs had connections to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. The Turkistan Islamic Party, however, swiftly released a video just yesterday denying that the captured Uyghurs were members of their organization (which itself may or may not have connections to Al-Qaeda) and added further that no members of their organization have been captured and that, instead, Pakistan had apprehended, on China’s behalf, innocent businessmen and students studying in Lahore, the implication being that Pakistan has a dragnet out for Uyghur expatriates in case China needs to be appeased. The video ends with a threat of “real action” against any countries who extradite TIP members to China.

In contrast to previous material released by the Turkistan Islamic Party, the audio here is very crisp and the voice enunciated well, and so a transcription and translation is forthcoming.

Big hat tip to commenter Uyghur for bringing to our attention yet another video issued by the Turkestan Islamic Party in the Uyghur language titled “Dunya Musulmanlirigha Omumiy Muraji’et”, or “A Universal Call to the Muslims of the World.” It seems that in the pre-Olympics excitment among the peoples and the news agencies of the world, this one has slipped under the radar and has not received as much attention as the last video. As such, we have no convenient intelligence agency with summary translations, and so, unless an organization steps forward in the next few days with a translation, we’re going to have to take a close, long look at it ourselves and post some notes on the content in a later post. For now, here is the video from Youtube:

Stay tuned for updates.