By ANTHONY DAVIS
A Myanmar border guard police officer escorts reporters upriver in Buthidaung township, northern Rakhine state, Myanmar July 14, 2017 PHOTO/Reuters/Simon Lewis
Evidence is mounting the new Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army is gearing up for a more lethal and sophisticated campaign against state forces
A village headman assaulted by machete-wielding men in a tea-shop; six villagers stabbed and shot dead in their fields; a blast in a house as locals attempt to assemble a home-made bomb.
This month has seen a marked increase in violence in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state and the unrest is sending security forces a blunt message: despite the ferocity of last year’s army-led crackdown which left scores of Rohingya civilians dead and sent over 70,000 refugees into neighboring Bangladesh, a renewed and almost certainly wider conflict is brewing.
Rohingya Muslim militants, who last October launched surprise attacks on three border police posts that killed nine officers, have stepped up preparations for a revived insurgency during the area’s rainy season that constrains major military sweeps.
That’s involved asserting control over local communities, accelerating recruitment and expanding military training activities across all three majority Rohingya townships of Maungdaw, Buthidaung and Rathedaung, the epicenter of last year’s militant attacks and military crackdown.
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