Tour guide turned Arakan Army commander sees nationhood in victory

COCONUTS YANGON
By Edward Cowley
Jun 23, 2020

Twan Mrat Naing, 41, leads the Arakan Army.

While the world’s attention is focused on COVID-19, war is brewing in the jungles of western Myanmar. The Arakan Army, or AA, was formed just a few years ago by students, workers and farmers but has learned the ruthless tactics of guerrilla warfare quickly.

Major-General Twan Mrat Naing, its commander, aspires to no less than forging a new nation.

“My personal dream,” he said, “is to see our national flag at the Olympic Games and to hear our national anthem sung.”

Nine held in Myanmar in Arakan Army fundraising probe

Frontier
MYANMAR

Friday, July 26, 2019 

By AFP

Ko Tin Hlaing Oo from Arakan Association (Singapore) arrives at Yangon International Airport after being deported from Singapore on July 10 along with three others over alleged links to the Arakan Army. (Thuya Zaw | Frontier)

YANGON — Nine people subject to a police probe over fundraising for the Arakan Army in Rakhine State were remanded in custody Friday, including several recently deported from Singapore.

Among the deportees is Ko Aung Myat Kyaw, who is believed to be the brother of Brigadier General Tun Myat Naing, the chief of the AA.

‘We Are United Because We Are All Under Threat’: AA Chief

The Irrawaddy  

Analysis

By Aung Zaw
6 June 2019

Arakan Army (AA) soldiers at their Kachin State headquarters in April 2019. / The Irrawaddy

PANGHSANG, Wa Self-Administered Region—With almost daily fighting taking place between the Myanmar Army and the Arakan Army (AA), the casualties on both sides are higher than we have seen on the news.

Arakan Army chief cries out in Myanmar

ASIATIMES  

Interview

By Christian Bouche-Villeneuve, Pangsang

Rebel leader tells Asia Times in an interview that his insurgency has mass support and that the international community has his fight all wrong 

 

Tun Myat Naing, commander-in-chief of the Arakan Army, attends a meeting of leaders of Myanmar's ethnic armed groups at the United Wa State Army headquarters in Pansang in Myanmar's northern Shan State, May 6, 2015. Photo: Twitter

Myanmar’s upstart Arakan Army (AA) has intensified its insurgent operations in recent months, opening a new front of instability in the nation’s long-running ethnic civil wars.

The armed conflict has compounded volatility in Rakhine state, from where over 700,000 Muslim Rohingya have been expelled in government “clearance operations” beginning in 2017 the United Nations and others suggest may have had “genocidal intent.”

In Laiza, building an ‘iron spirit’

Frontier
MYANMAR
Friday, April 19, 2019
By YE MON | FRONTIER

A visit to the Arakan Army “temporary” headquarters in the stronghold of the Kachin Independence Army reveals a large number of fresh recruits and newly minted officers ready to be dispatched to Myanmar’s latest conflict zone.

 
AS WE passed through the entrance gate into the Arakan Army compound, the two uniformed soldiers on sentry duty stood to attention, raising their rifles in acknowledgement.

I looked again. Women soldiers?