Rahat Islam of DOT :
Myanmar has called on its military to “launch operations” against ethnic Rakhine rebels behind a deadly attack on four police stations last week, a government spokesman said yesterday, as a surge of violence grips the restive western state.
“The president’s office has already instructed the Tatmadaw (the army) to launch operations to crack down on the insurgents,” Zaw Htay told reporters at a press conference in the capital Naypyidaw.
The country’s troubled western Rakhine state has seen a series of clashes in recent weeks between security forces and the Arakan Army (AA), an armed group calling for more autonomy for the state’s ethnic Rakhine Buddhist population.
The region is one of the poorest in Myanmar and is scarred by deep ethnic and religious hatred.
A brutal army campaign in August 2017 forced hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims over the border into Bangladesh. The operations were justified by the army as its way to stamp out Rohingya militants.
The latest violence by ethnic Rakhine rebels culminated on Friday – Myanmar’s Independence Day – in brazen pre-dawn raids on four police posts in Buthidaung township near the Bangladesh border.
Authorities said that the attack by hundreds of militants left 13 police officers dead and nine wounded before the army were able to provide back-up. Meanwhile, the AA claimed that three of its fighters had been killed, accusing the military of using the police stations as a base from which to fire heavy artillery.
-Source: AFP