http://www.start.umd.edu/start/data_...le.asp?id=4347

Claims that ETIM has ties to al-Qaeda, Usama bin Laden, and the Taliban persist. Many reputable sources debate whether or not al-Qaeda has provided the group with training and financial assistance. The US Department of State, in its 2005 report on terrorism, states that ETIM is "linked to al-Qaida and the international jihadist movement" and that al-Qaeda has provided ETIM with "training and financial assistance". Another US government website reports that one ETIM leader was killed in a raid on al-Qaeda safehouses in Pakistan. The Chinese government has been known to exaggerate the connection between ETIM and al-Qaeda to enlist the support of the United States in endorsing China's social control tactics in Xinjiang. It is likely that members of ETIM have had contact with al-Qaeda elements, but no high-level contacts have been established.
ETIM has been implicated in terrorist plots against US interests in the Central Asia region, including a foiled plot to attack the US Embassy in Kyrgyzstan.
Credibility of the following link unknown:

http://coffeeandsleeplessnights.word...rs/#more-11845

Al-Qaeda’s longstanding use of children to wage jihad was on display in a recent video showing boys as young as five training with assault rifles and handguns at a terrorist training camp.
The video of the gun-toting, prepubescent jihadists was reportedly filmed by the al-Qaeda-linked East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) at one of the terror group’s training camps in Pakistan’s North Waziristan region.

Since 1990 the ETIM, which has been fighting to create an independent Islamic state in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region, has not only committed more than 200 acts of worldwide terrorism but has trained scores of jihadists to fight alongside al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opi...637916112.html

Article discusses the economic importance of the region (Silk Road hopes) and the interests of a number of countries.

After the opening of the Karakoram Highway between China and Pakistan, up to the mid-1990s thousands of young Uyghurs studied Islam abroad, going to religious schools in Pakistan, Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. A few also went to Yemen and Qatar.

The problem, China would argue, is that those who returned to Xinjiang were in most cases Deobandis, Salafis and Wahhabis. Over the past few years Uyghurs returning from Central Asia also opened Hizb-ut Tahrir cells in Xinjiang. Hizb-ut Tahrir is extremely critical of Beijing's policies.

Oil and gas-rich Xinjiang consists of 1.6mn square kilometres, vast deserts, and borders no less than 8 Asian countries. Xinjiang is much more than China's "frontline against terrorism". It is also at the core of China's dream of being the star of the New Silk Road.