Turkish officials’ claims that the prime suspect for the New Year’s Eve attack on the Reina nightclub in Istanbul is a Uighur – a member of the largely Muslim, Turkic-speaking, group – deserves to be taken seriously.

The killer’s assumed name, a nom de guerre, is one clue. It was given on Thursday by Turkish media as Abu Muhammed Horasani, the second part meaning “the man from Horasan”.

Horasan, or more usually Khorasan, is the name given by Islamic State and other Islamic extremists to an area that includes much of central Asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and, less frequently, western China. Those regions have substantial Uighur diaspora communities. Though it may seem odd for clandestine operatives, it is almost unknown for a fighter to use a name giving a false place of origin.

A second factor is that Isis, which has claimed and is almost certainly responsible for the attack, has a history of using extremists from Turkic-language speaking communities, such as the Uighurs, for terrorist operations in Turkey.

The network, behind the attack on Istanbul’s Atatürk airport in June last year, appears to have included members from Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, both majority Turkic-language speaking countries. More than 25 men and women detained by police in Izmir, west Turkey, were reported to be from Syria, the Russian Republic of Dagestan, western China and Kyrgyzstan. Though not claimed by Isis, that attack was attributed to the terrorist group by Turkish officials.

Using attackers from Turkic-language communities in Turkey helps logistically, making terrorists less visible and vulnerable, but serves an important propaganda purpose too, sending the message that even those who share both faith and language with the Turks can be turned against them.

Isis do this systematically and not just in Turkey. Almost everywhere attacks involve a target nation’s own citizens. French nationals are sent to kill other French men and women; Egyptians against Egyptians and Bangladeshis against Bangladeshis.

Isis also has a substantial number of Uighur recruits, assets that will be deployed in a wave of terrorism likely to intensify as the group’s strongholds shrink and it begins to fragment.

Estimates vary as to quite how many Uighurs have made the long journey from the Xinjang province of China, where most live, to join Isis. Security officials in the west and international experts at the UN and elsewhere have challenged Chinese official claims of there being 300 or more Uighurs with the group. Isis documents indicate that between mid-2013 and mid-2014, 114 Uighurs, almost all from China, joined the group.

As with other communities across the Islamic world, Isis has reached out to this community, or at least has prominently featured Uighurs in propaganda campaigns.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of Isis, has prominently criticised Chinese oppression of Muslims while laying out a vision of an Islamic caliphate stretching from Morocco to Xinjiang. The group has also released suicide attackers identified as “Chinese brothers”.

The appeal has fallen on fertile ground. There has been long running unrest among Uighurs in west China for many decades, where some view their culture and even land as under attack from Han Chinese “invaders”. This resentment led a tiny minority to become involved with Islamist extremism in Afghanistan and Pakistan in the 1980s and 1990s.

An extremist organisation, known as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), was formed. It was listed as a terrorist group by the US in 2002. Other factions emerged over the next decade, such as the Turkestan Islamic party (TIP), and were blamed for attacks in China.

At the same time Uighur diaspora communities, particularly in central Asia, were exposed to waves of Islamist activism too. In recent years Uighurs have been blamed a car attack on pedestrians in Beijing, a bombing and mass knifings in Chinese cities. There has also been evidence of growing international connections and capabilities.

China has accused Uighur groups of recruiting among Uighur communities in central Asia, especially in Krgyzstan and Turkey. It has also repeatedly called on Pakistan to eliminate the group’s presence there. Kyrgyz officials last year identified a suicide bomber, who attacked the Chinese embassy in Bishkek in August, as an Uighur militant.

Isis is not the only international jihadi group interested in the Uighurs. Most Uighur fighters in Syria joined a faction effectively embedded within Jabah al Fateh al Sham (JFS), al-Qaida’s principal proxy in the region and a bitter rival of Isis. Although exact numbers are impossible to confirm, analysts believe there are hundreds Uighurs fighting with JFS. They have reportedly been deployed in battles against government forces in Idlib and Aleppo provinces, at times as suicide attackers.

Reports in Turkish media of the recent movements of the New Year’s Eve gunman underline the international nature of the jihadi threat. They describe how Abu Muhammed al Khorasani had combat training in Syria, then returned to central Asia, and finally flew with his family from Kyrgyzstan to Istanbul on 20 November. His victims included citizens of 14 countries.