What is the East Turkestan Islamic Movement?
Experts say reliable information about ETIM is hard to come by, and they disagree about the extent of ETIM's terrorist activities and ties to global terrorism. Xinjiang province, where the group is based, is a vast, sparsely populated area that shares borders with eight countries, including Afghanistan and Pakistan. The first mention of ETIM surfaced around 2000, when a Russian newspaper reported that Osama bin Laden had pledged funds to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and ETIM during a 1999 meeting in Afghanistan.