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| Southeast Asia |
| Rohingya militants in Bangladesh camps eager to fight |
| 2017-10-04 |
| [DAWN] Bangladesh has deployed secret police in the burgeoning refugee camps near its border with Myanmar, where Rohingya claiming to be members of a bully boy group say they have found fertile ground for recruitment. Authorities in Bangladesh, which was already grappling with its own militancy problem before the latest mass influx of Rohingya refugees, have repeatedly said there are no hard boyz among the new arrivals. But inside the camps are a number of self-proclaimed members of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), the group behind the August 25 attacks on police posts in Myanmar that sparked a military crackdown that the UN has likened to ethnic cleansing. Capitalising on anger over the unrest that has forced half a million Rohingya Moslems to flee to squalid camps in Bangladesh, recruiters claim to have enlisted hundreds willing to fight back in Myanmar, where the minority faced decades of persecution. Those allegations are hard to verify. But authorities in Bangladesh have stepped up surveillance of the border area in recent weeks. Mohammad Halim, who says he is a recruiter for ARSA, told AFP that volunteers were trained in combat, military tactics and the use of weapons ‐ but he complained that they were unarmed. "All that training seems to be vain, because we don't have weapons," Halim said in a steamy tent in Cox's Bazar, using a pseudonym to protect his identity. "If we had arms, we'd go back to Myanmar to fight... we would drive away the military and take back our land," he told AFP. Waiting for orders The ARSA says it launched the August assault ‐ and a previous attack in October 2016 ‐ to fight back after decades of suffocating restrictions on Rohingya Moslems in Buddhist-dominated Myanmar, which denies them citizenship and free movement. But the violence unleashed by the ARSA attacks has resulted in a massive exodus of the minority from their homes in Rakhine state. ARSA, branded a terrorist organization in Myanmar, is fronted by Ata Ullah, who is believed to have been born to a Rohingya family in Pakistain, and to have lived in Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... Rohingya leaders have long rejected attempts by outside murderous Moslems to radicalise the population. But observers say increasingly oppressive restrictions imposed since communal violence between Moslems and Rakhine Buddhists in 2012 have allowed support for militancy to take root. Security experts warn that radicalisation among the Rohingya would have far-reaching consequences, especially if global Death Eater groups tap ethnic rivalry in Myanmar's Rakhine state and anger in the refugee camps in Bangladesh. Refugees fleeing the latest violence -‐ including sizeable Hindu and Buddhist minorities ‐ have alleged atrocities by all sides, including mass killings and rapes. ARSA has effectively gone underground in recent weeks, said Jahangir Alam, a newly arrived refugee who claimed he took part in the bully boy ambush on security forces last October. Rohingya fighters were told to await orders and weapons, Alam said, but some in the camps were eager to avenge the slaughter of friends and family. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #4 "If we had arms, we'd go back to Myanmar to fight... we would drive away the military and take back our land," he told AFP. If, if, if. Sounds like bar talk. "We'd moiderize them!" |
| Posted by: Frank G 2017-10-04 08:45 |
| #3 well if Burma holds it's nerve the Bangladesh invasion will be halted. I think they should invest in a decent border wall. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2017-10-04 06:36 |
#2 Rohingya leaders have long rejected attempts by outside murderous Moslems to radicalise the population. Not very well, obviously. |
| Posted by: Rob Crawford 2017-10-04 06:15 |
| #1 Maybe if you weren't so eager to fight, you wouldn't be in a refugee camp. Just sayin'... |
| Posted by: SteveS 2017-10-04 01:58 |