Myanmar army urges civilian tip-offs on Arakan Army in Rakhine.

The Daily Star
11:05 AM, March 26, 2019

FILE PHOTO: A Myanmar soldier patrols in a boat at the Mayu river near Buthidaung in the north of Rakhine state, Myanmar September 13, 2017. REUTERS/Stringer

Eleven Media Group, Myanmar

The Tatmadaw requested people to give tip-offs about Arakan Army (AA) to respective administrative organizations and security organizations if the AA entered their towns, wards and villages to avoid further bloodshed in Rakhine State, it announced on March 23.

Myanmar military fights Arakan Army among ancient Rakhine temples

Frontier 
MYANMAR
By AFP
Tuesday, March 19, 2019

A local resident walks near the Kothaung temple in Mrauk-U, Rakhine State (Nyein Su Wai Kyaw Soe | Frontier) 

YANGON — Fighting between Myanmar's military and ethnic Rakhine insurgents has now reached the ancient temples of Mrauk U, the former capital of the Rakhine kingdom and a popular tourist site, local residents said Monday.

Rakhine state in Myanmar's west is riven with ethnic and religious divisions.

It came under the global spotlight after the bloody 2017 army crackdown that forced some 740,000 Rohingya Muslims over the border into Bangladesh.

Myanmar: Arakan Army Is Not A Terrorist Outfit – OpEd

eurasiareview
March 9, 2019

By S. Chandrasekharan

Location of Burma. Source: CIA World Factbook.

It looks that both the Myanmar Government and its Army with the tacit support of China are trying make out that the Arakan Army is deeply in cohort with the terrorist outfit- the ARSA in causing depredations in Rakhine State.

Bangladesh hands over ‘detained’ Myanmar army man

The Daily Star
March 03, 2019

Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) handed over a member of Myanmar Army to Myanmar today, 39 days after he was “detained” along the border in Bandarban on January 24, an official of the Bangladeshi paramilitary force has said.
.

Aung Bo Thin was handed over to the Myanmar Army on Bangladesh-Myanmar Friendship Bridge at Ghumdum point along the border in Naikhangchhari upazila at 12:05pm, BGB battalion- 34 Commander Lt Col Ali Haider Azad Ahmed told a press briefing.

Myanmar Military Major Killed in Fighting With Arakan Army in Rakhine

The Irrawaddy

By Moe Myint 25 February 2019

Maj. Aung Ko Nyein. / Masarita Nyarni / Facebook

 

YANGON — The Office of the Commander-in-Chief said a Myanmar military major was killed during fighting with the Arakan Army (AA) in northern Rakhine State’s Buthidaung Township Friday night, near where the rebel group killed 13 border police officers in early January.

Brig. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, a spokesman with the office, identified the dead officer as Maj. Aung Ko Nyein.

'No proof' Myanmar military persecuted Rohingya: army chief

Mail Online 

By Afp ,Published: 14:10, 15 February 2019

Myanmar military chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing says accusations the military committed atrocities "hurts the nation's dignity"

Myanmar's powerful army chief has given a rare foreign media interview to insist there was no "certain proof" the military had persecuted the country's stateless Rohingya Muslim community.

Around 740,000 Rohingya fled over the border into Bangladesh after a bloody military campaign in 2017.

Myanmar army chief denies systematic persecution of Rohingya

REUTERS
February 15, 2019

TOKYO (Reuters) - Myanmar’s army chief, who is facing international calls that he be prosecuted for genocide against the Rohingya Muslim minority, has denied any systematic army persecution and said such accusations were an insult to his country’s honor.

Rohingya refugees are seen near a shop in the evening at Balukhali camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, November 16, 2018. REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain

Myanmar president stresses union's independence, sovereignty.

CGTN
12-Feb-2019 

 

Myanmar President U Win Myint on Tuesday stressed the united strength and commitment of all ethnic people in helping preserve and perpetuate independence and sovereignty, and prevent the disintegration of the union.

Hundreds More Flee Fighting in Northern Rakhine Over Weekend

The Irrawwady
11 Feburary 2019, By Moe Myint

People displaced by fighting between the Myanmar military and Arakan Army over the weekend take shelter and have a meal at the Yoe Ta Yoke monastery in Ponnagyun Township, Rakhine State, on Sunday. / Rakhine Ethnic Congress / Facebook
YANGON — Fighting between the Arakan Army (AA) and the Myanmar military’s Light Infantry Division 22 drove more than 500 residents of Saung Du Village, in northern Rakhine State’s Kyauktaw Township, out of their homes over the weekend.

Amnesty: Myanmar army ops target Rakhine state.

5,200 men, women, children displaced due to ongoing fighting by Jan. 28, according to human rights group citing UN figures.

11.02.2019

By Ahmet Gurhan Kartal

LONDON

Myanmar security forces have shelled villages and blocked civilians from accessing food and humanitarian assistance in western Rakhine state since early 2019, a rights groups said Monday.

“Security forces have also used vague and repressive laws to detain civilians in the area,” according to the Amnesty International report based on fresh evidence on ongoing military operations.

Myanmar villagers flee to Bangladesh amid Rakhine violence.

Al Jazeera.
8th February 2019

Fighting between Myanmar's military and the Arakan Army has displaced more than 5,000 people since December.

Myanmar border police stand guard in Buthidaung, Rakhine [File: Reuters]

Scores of ethnic-minority villagers have crossed from western Myanmar into Bangladesh in recent days amid fighting between the Myanmar military and ethnic Rakhine rebels, according to Bangladesh border guards and an activist.

After Exchange of Gunfire in Northern Rakhine Village, Myanmar Army Returns to Loot Homes

28.01.2019

A Myanmar family displaced by fighting between government troops and the Arakan Army take shelter at a displacement camp in Kyauktaw township, western Myanmar's Rakhine state, Dec 23, 2018.

AFP

Myanmar soldiers and rebel Arakan Army troops exchanged fire for four hours Monday morning near Ohn Chaung village in restive Rakhine state’s Rathedaung township, with soldiers returning with border guards later in the day to search and loot homes, residents said.

Myanmar’s Military Warns Ethnic Armies Against Trying to Expand Territory During Cease-fire.

2019-01-25

 Major General Tun Tun Nyi, vice chairman of the Myanmar military’s information committee, prepares to discuss the recent Arakan Army conflict at a rare military press conference at the Defense Services Museum in Myanmar's capital Naypyidaw, Jan. 18, 2019.

Myanmar’s military on Friday warned ethnic armed groups to end hostilities in five of its command regions around the country and to stop attempts to expand their territory during the temporary unilateral cease-fire that the armed forces imposed in December, or risk damaging the nation’s teetering peace process.

Armed Group Attacks Myanmar Border Guard Post in Rakhine State, Injuring Three

An armed assault on a Myanmar border guard station leaves a gaping hole in the wall of one building and a blown-out door on another structure in Maungdaw township, western Myanmar's Rakhine state, near the border with Bangladesh, Jan. 24, 2019.

Photo courtesy of Myanmar's Ministry of Information

UPDATED at 10:48 A.M. EST on 2019-01-25

Members of an unidentified armed group on the Bangladesh side of the border separating the country from Myanmar injured three people in a shooting on Thursday at a border guard outpost in conflict-ridden Rakhine state, a spokesman for the military’s Western Command and a township official said.

Three injured in bombing of Myanmar border police outpost.

The Straits Times
Published: 25th January 2019,

YANGON (DPA) - An unidentified armed group launched four explosive devices and fired several shots at a Myanmar police outpost in northern Rakhine state on Thursday morning (Jan 24), state media announced on Friday.

Two police officers and one military engineer were injured in the attack.

Violence has beset the Myanmar-Bangladesh border area for years.

Statement of INGOs in Myanmar.

Published on 22 Jan 2019,

As International NGOs supporting communities throughout Rakhine State, we express deep concern for displaced communities and others affected by the upsurge in fighting between the Arakan Army (AA) and Myanmar Military. Fighting, attacks, and reports of abuse have invoked fear and anxiety among local communities and displaced an estimated 5,000 men, women, and children. We condemn the violence and call on all sides to show restraint and ensure the protection of civilians.

UN Special Rapporteur expresses alarm at escalating conflict in Myanmar.

By agency reporter

JANUARY 22, 2019

The UN’s human rights expert on Myanmar has expressed alarm at the escalating violence in northern and central Rakhine State and Chin State, and called on all sides to exercise restraints in use of force and to ensure the protection of civilians.

Since November 2018 the Myanmar military, known as the Tatmadaw, and Arakan Army (AA), an ethnic armed organisation, have been engaged in heavy fighting, resulting in deaths and injuries to civilians. At least 5,000 people have been displaced from their homes.

Myanmar's Civil War is Moving Closer to India's Borders, Threatens to Cross Over.

Two districts of Manipur - Saiha and Lawngtlai – where thousands of Myanmar’s citizens have come taken refuge, is where a few clashes between Myanmar Army and Arakan Army have been reported.

Suhas Munshi | News18.com

January 22, 2019, 8:42 AM IST

The influx of thousands of refugees is not the only concern for India as far as the decade's old civil war in Myanmar is concerned. The war is actually coming closer home. 

Sources in the home ministry have told News18 that the civil war between Arakan Army, the Rakhine-based insurgent group, and the Myanmar Army, understood to be almost over, is still simmering intermittently and has come very close to India.

Obituary: David Abel, Economics Czar Under Myanmar's Military Regime, Dies.

By THE IRRAWADDY 

21 January 2019

                                      David Abel as seen in a screengrab from an AP video published in 2015

David Oliver Abel, a former brigadier general and the economics czar of Myanmar’s military regime in the 1990s, died of heart failure in Yangon on Sunday. He was 84.

Of Anglo-Burman, Indian and Jewish Catholic descent, he was one of only a few non-Buddhists in the military government. Born in Yangon, David Abel was selected to attend the Royal Military Academy, Sand Hurst, in the United Kingdom from 1953 to 1956 and graduated with a degree in economics.

Myanmar army told to stage push against Arakan rebels.

The Star Online
Sunday, 20 Jan 2019

NAYPYIDAW: Myanmar’s military announced that the Arakan Army, a Buddhist rebel group in Rakhine state, has been classified a terrorist organisation after mounting a flurry of recent attacks.

The state earlier was the site of a brutal counterinsurgency campaign by the military against the Muslim Rohingya minority, causing more than 700,000 to flee to neighbouring Bangladesh.