The Uncertain Future of the Foreign Fighters Who Helped Topple Syria’s Assad

Uyghur fighters have been incorporated into the new Syrian government, but their future in Syria remains uncertain as China ramps up pressure to deport them back to China.

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Transcript

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

Syria's regime collapsed about a year and a half ago. The U.S. has since lifted onerous sanctions, and people in Syria are picking their lives back up again. That includes thousands of foreign fighters and their families who have stayed behind in Syria. NPR's Emily Feng checked in with a few of them about why they came to fight a war that was not theirs.

EMILY FENG, BYLINE: This bakery off the side of a road in this hillside village ...

(SOUNDBITE OF KITCHEN EQUIPMENT)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Non-English language spoken).

FENG: ... Is turning out heaps of meat-stuffed buns ...

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Non-English language spoken).

FENG: ... Called samsas, and naan, a kind of flatbed beloved by ethnic Uyghurs. We're in northern Syria, but the food is straight out of Xinjiang, the Uyghurs' homeland, which is now a big chunk of modern-day China.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Non-English language spoken).

FENG: Ethnic Uyghur fighters and their families that fled China have settled here. For more than a decade, they fought and trained with Syrian rebel fighters, part of a dream that they might one day learn how to fight the Chinese government and win independence of their homelands from Chinese control. But now that the Syrian civil war is over, some 20,000 Uyghurs are putting down roots in Syria, running businesses like that bakery, building homes ...

UNIDENTIFIED TEACHER: (Non-English language spoken).

UNIDENTIFIED STUDENTS: (Non-English language spoken).

FENG: ... And setting up Uyghur language schools like this one ...

UNIDENTIFIED STUDENTS: (Non-English language spoken).

FENG: ... Where about 300 elementary-age children attend. Nearby, I meet Mary (ph). She's the wife of a senior officer. She wants her children to be multilingual, fluent in Uyghur but also Arabic and English. All the Uyghurs in this piece, including Mary, only want to use their first names because they fear the Chinese government will arrest their family members still in China.

MARY: (Non-English language spoken).

FENG: Four of her five children were born in Syria, and she says she hopes they will not just be fighters but also perhaps diplomats or doctors.

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #1: (Non-English language spoken).

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #2: (Laughter).

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #3: (Non-English language spoken).

FENG: But the Uyghurs face an uncomfortable reality here in Syria. They say they felt marginalized within China, but in Syria, the tables have turned. Many Arab Syrians perceive them as foreign occupiers, and some Syrian religious minorities view them as Muslim extremists. But the Uyghurs say their biggest threat is still China. Beijing has pressured Syria's new leadership to deport them. China has accused Uyghur groups of fatal attacks on Chinese soil since 1990.

CHOGHTAL: (Non-English language spoken).

FENG: Choghtal (ph), the Uyghur senior commander, denies these allegations. China is so strong economically and militarily, he and the fighters NPR interviewed say they believe attacking China is unrealistic, even foolhardy right now. The Chinese foreign ministry and state council did not respond to multiple NPR requests for comment. And the Uyghurs themselves are asking, why are they still in Syria?

ABU MOHAMMED: (Non-English language spoken).

FENG: "We came to Syria to train and fight China one day," says a fighter who goes by Abu Mohammed (ph). But Choghtal, the commander, says the focus for the community is how to remain here in Syria for now.

CHOGHTAL: (Non-English language spoken).

FENG: Syria has become the one place Choghtal says Uyghurs can preserve their identity, use their language and save their culture.

CHOGHTAL: (Non-English language spoken).

FENG: "Liberation," Choghtal says, "doesn't mean just picking up a gun." And because the Uyghurs fought alongside Syria's current rulers and helped them win the civil war, the Uyghurs now have political influence. They're part of the new national army. There's talk of giving Uyghurs in Syria Syrian citizenship. In a statement to NPR, the Syrian defense ministry said integrating the Uyghurs into their system, quote, "serves the interest of protecting Syrian sovereignty and preventing anxiety in their countries of origin." And the Uyghurs also believe they deserve a place in Syria today because they have sacrificed so much here.

The cost is evident here. High on a hill on the side of a dirt road are the graves of hundreds of Uyghur fighters who perished fighting the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

ANAS: (Non-English language spoken).

FENG: A fighter named Anas (ph) points to the grave of a friend, the white stone bright against the red soil.

ANAS: (Non-English language spoken).

FENG: At the foot of the gravestone are three smaller plaques — the names of three men who died trying to bring his friend's body back from where he'd fallen on the front lines. Anas says fighting and dying like this so far from home was not their first choice.

ANAS: (Non-English language spoken).

FENG: "We had hoped to be buried in the soil of our homeland," he says. His hope now is his children will not have to wander foreign lands forever. Emily Feng, NPR News, Idlib, Syria.

KELLY: And that story was supported by a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.