Exclusive | Terrorists ‘recruited Uygur students at Guangzhou university’
Man claiming to be researcher showed up at Guangzhou campus and helped members of ethnic minority go to Malaysia, sources say
Uygur students in Guangzhou have been warned to stay away from "outsiders" after several were recruited by a suspected religious extremist and had been missing since last year, various sources told the South China Morning Post.
A man claiming to be a US national conducting social science research visited the campus of the South China Normal University [SCNU] last year. Sources said the man recruited several Uygur students, gave them money and arranged for them to flee to Malaysia.
It is not clear if Malaysia was their final destination, or whether they were headed for Turkey or Syria, as some believe.
The recruiter was believed to be a member of an extremist religious group, according to a source who did not elaborate. A mainland terrorism expert said this was not an isolated case.
He said similar terrorist recruitments had been reported over the past two years at universities in Guangzhou, Beijing and Xian.
"The recruitment network of Islamic State has already spread to Beijing and Xian as well as Guangzhou," said Professor Yang Shu, an expert on Central Asia at Lanzhou University in Gansu province.