About 10 armed attackers from the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) ambushed a border guard post near Wet Kyein village in Maungdaw township in the north of the state on Wednesday, according to the government-controlled Myanmar TV network. Rakhine has been roiled by violence for weeks, since fighting broke out between security forces and another armed group, the Arakan Army (AA). The AA, which pre-dates ARSA, is a rebel group dominated by ethnic Rakhine Buddhists that has been fighting for autonomy for the western state for around a decade. ARSA, which emerged with attacks on border posts in 2016, is focused on winning rights for Rohingya, the mostly stateless Muslim minority long persecuted in Myanmar. A crackdown on the Rohingya Muslim minority in Buddhist-majority Rakhine in 2017 triggered an exodus of about 730,000 Rohingya refugees to neighboring Bangladesh.

Source: Dhaka Tribune January 19, 2019 18:56 UTC