According to a Jamestown Foundation Brief, in early August 2017, 'Malhama Tactical', a militant group operating in Syria and sometimes labelled the “Blackwater of jihad,” issued a statement in which it hinted at a planned expansion into China and alluded to the experiences of China’s Uighur population in the western Chinese province of Xinjiang. The group claims to have added Chinese fighters to its ranks. Malhama Tactical has trained low-skilled Uighur fighters belonging to  the Turkistan Islamic Party’s division in the Levant (TIP-L) and participated alongside TIP-L in operations against the Syrian regime in southern Aleppo in September 2016. The group claims that not only Uighurs, but also Han Chinese are among its trainees. In April 2017, the group published an online photo of two new fighters in its ranks. One of them, a trainer/translator who is a Mandarin Chinese speaker, was identified as “Yunus Kitaets” (Yunus from China).

(Comment: 'Malhama Tactical' is run for profit and advertises itself on social media networks as the first jihadist private military training company. Its online support base is growing with nearly 2,400 subscribers and 250,676 views on YouTube, as well as 600 members on its public Facebook page. On Twitter, the group has more than 1,500 followers. In January 2017, a member of 'Malhama Tactical' used Twitter to call for anonymous donations and give an account number with Wallet One, a Johannesburg-registered international payment system. The group is under the leadership of Abu Salman Belarussi, whose appointment was announced on the group’s Twitter page on May 5. According to the group, Abu Salman Belarussi is of military pedigree, having been a senior sergeant of the 103rd Guards Airborne Brigade of the Special Operations Forces of Belarus based in the Vitebsk Region.)