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| Southeast Asia |
| Nine Myanmar policemen killed in attack by insurgents |
| 2019-03-12 |
| [DAWN] Nine coppers were killed in an attack in Myanmar’s western state of Rakhine by the increasingly active Arakan Army rebel group, the country’s Information Ministry said on Sunday. The ministry’s website said 60 Arakan Army forces of Evil on Saturday night attacked the police post, which was safeguarding question and answer sheets from the national high school matriculation examination. The Arakan Army, which is aligned with Rakhine’s Buddhist population, seeks autonomy for the region. Rakhine is better known as the site of a brutal counterinsurgency campaign by the military against the Moslem Rohingya minority, causing more than 700,000 to flee to neighbouring Bangladesh. Attacks on police by the Rohingya ARSA Death Eater group which has become largely inactive triggered the crackdown. The government declared the Arakan Army a terrorist organization after it killed 13 coppers and maimed nine in attacks on Jan 4. The Arakan Army on its website claims to have killed 10 government soldiers in a March 8 battle, but that incident has not been confirmed. Myanmar’s military announced in January that government forces clashed with the Arakan Army 15 times in 2015, 26 times in 2016, 56 times in 2017 and 61 times in 2018, while the rebels also planted some mines. They said that up to mid-January this year, there have been at least eight armed encounters. |
| Posted by:Fred |