Rohingya militia growing bigger by the day

COX’S BAZAR: Mohammad Omar used to cross the border into Bangladesh to sell cigarettes but these days he has a different agenda – restocking supplies for the fledgling Rohingya militia fighting Myanmar’s security forces.

New recruits are being trained and armed in the hillsides across the border in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, Omar said.

Omar, 20, said he was among more than 170 fighters from the Rohingya Muslim minority hiding at a jungle redoubt, from where they stage raids to seize guns from Myanmar security outposts.

“We did not have guns so we attacked them like a swarm of hornets, shouting and wielding our sticks and machetes,” Omar said of one raid, using a pseudonym to protect his identity.

“We outnumbered them 17 to one.

“Most of the soldiers got scared and ran for their lives. Then we grabbed their weapons and ammunition,” he added.

His account could not be independently verified, but offers an insight into the cat-and-mouse game between militants and security forces being played out in remote hamlets, fields and forest hideouts in Myanmar’s westernmost Rakhine state.

Omar says he is a foot soldier with the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (Arsa), which claims it was behind the surprise attacks that killed 11 Myanmar officers and sparked the worst fighting seen in Rakhine in months.

After years in which the Rohingya largely avoided violence, Arsa emerged from the shadows last October when it staged coordinated, deadly attacks on police posts.

That prompted a months-long security crackdown by Myanmar’s army which left scores dead and forced 87,000 people to flee to Bangladesh.

The emergence of organised militancy proved a game-changer for Rakhine, a restive state beset by religious violence since 2012, analysts say.

Omar joined the group – known locally as Harakah al-Yaqin – in the aftermath of the October assault as Rohingya answered the rallying cry to take up arms and defend their villages.

The group is steered by Rohingya living in Saudi Arabia, and commanded in the field by experienced guerilla fighters, a report by the International Crisis Group states.

Myanmar classes the militants as “Bengali terrorists” and has accused them of indiscriminate murder and torching both Rohingya homes and those of other communities.

Arsa says it is fighting to protect the Rohingya from abuses by Myanmar security forces and the majority-Buddhist Rakhine community, who they accuse of trying to push them out.

Rohingya are reviled in Myanmar as illegal immigrants and roughly one million have been denied citizenship. — AFP