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Myanmar Says Taliban-Trained Militants behind Border Raids
[AnNahar] A Pak Taliban-trained turban leader was behind deadly attacks in the north of Myanmar's Rakhine state that have sparked a military crackdown and sent thousands of terrified residents fleeing the area, Myanmar's president said Friday.

A little-known group called the Aqa Mul Mujahidin carried out the border post raids on Sunday that left nine coppers dead, the presidency said in a statement, linking it to a Rohingya turban outfit called the RSO experts have long considered defunct.

Its leader spent six months training with the Taliban in Pakistain and received funding from unspecified organizations in the Middle East, the statement added.

"The leader of the group is Hafiz Tohar, 45, from Kyauk Pyin Seik village, in Maungdaw township," said the statement, according to an English translation of the name from Burmese.

"He studied with the Taliban for six months in Pakistain."

Troops have poured into restive northern Rakhine since Sunday's raids, locking down an area where most residents are from Myanmar's persecuted Moslem Rohingya minority.

At least 26 civilians have died in the ensuing skirmishes -- rights groups say the army has been gunning down unarmed Rohingya on the streets, but the army says troops have been defending themselves against attackers.

Details of the killings and the ensuing lockdown by the military have proved difficult to confirm on the remote and tightly controlled area.

A front man purporting to represent the RSO has vigorously denied any links to the border raids in a statement sent to AFP.

- Hundreds of gunnies -
The violence has raised the specter of sectarian unrest in 2012 that ripped the impoverished state apart, leaving more than 100 dead and driving tens of thousands of Rohingya into squalid displacement camps.

Families have been streaming out of Maungdaw on foot, their worldly possessions stuffed into carrier bags and plastic buckets or strapped to the front of bicycle rickshaws.

Around 180 teachers, workers and residents were also airlifted out of the region on Thursday, while hundreds of government staff have poured into the state capital Sittwe.

AFP spoke to witnesses on Friday in Warpaik, a village close to where the first border post was raided and where the military said they discovered flags and scarves bearing the RSO logo the previous day.

One elderly resident, who asked not to be named for her safety, described being set upon by hundreds of gunnies: "About 500 or 600 people attacked in three places," she said.

"About 40 of us ran up a nearby hill with the children. We got hurt because we slipped and fell down as we ran," she said, showing injuries on her foot.

"They were shooting with guns. They only bravely ran away when soldiers arrived. If soldiers hadn't come, we would have all been killed."

- 'Jihad videos' -
She identified the attackers from videos that have been circulating on social media that appear to show a group of armed Rohingya men calling for Moslems around the world to rise up in jihad in support of their cause.

The three unverified videos, all shot in what appear to be rice fields and bamboo jungles similar to the landscapes along the Myanmar and Bangladesh border, have sparked concern that some from the hitherto largely peaceful group may be becoming radicalized.

The Rohingya's plight has long been a rallying call for international jihadist organizations including the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
 group and Pakistain's Taliban, but there has been little evidence that jihadist ideology has taken root among them.

"The videos appear to be entirely authentic," said Anthony Davis, a security analyst with IHS-Jane's, pointing out the front man was using the Rohingya's Chittagong dialect of Bengali and carrying weapons like those authorities say were used in the border guard raids.

"The footage shows what appear to be a rabble of typical Rohingya youths -- poorly dressed, ill-equipped and apparently untrained."

An aide of Myanmar's de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, did not confirm whether the videos were real, but said the government "doesn't feel worried" about it.

The violence in Rakhine has posed a challenge to her newly elected government, which took power in March from a military junta that ruled the country for 50 years.

Facing international criticism for not doing more to help the Rohingya, she recently appointed a commission led by former U.N. chief Kofi Annan
...Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh and so far the worst Secretary-General of the UN. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize for something or other that probably sounded good at the time. In December 2004, reports surfaced that Kofi's son Kojo received payments from the Swiss company Cotecna, which had won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil-for-Food Program. Kofi Annan called for an investigation to look into the allegations, which stirred up the expected cesspool but couldn't seem to come up with enough evidence to indict Kofi himself, or even Kojo...
 to investigate Rakhine's troubles.
Posted by: trailing wife 2016-10-15
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=470313