MAUNG HNA MA, Myanmar: In the middle of the night on July 4, more than a dozen masked men, dressed head-to-toe in black, surrounded Abdu Sulwon’s home in northwestern Myanmar. His widow said that was the last time she saw him alive.
“I saw a trail of blood where they dragged him away,” said Haleda, 40, showing bruises on her body where she says the men beat her with sticks. Her husband’s body was found in a ravine near their village, Maung Hna Ma, on Saturday.
She gave her account to reporters during a government-organized trip to the troubled north of Myanmar’s Rakhine State, where most people belong to the stateless Rohingya Muslim minority.
Officials say Rohingya insurgents are behind this and a slew of killings in the area that has been racked by violence in recent months, with security forces accused of committing atrocities against civilians.
“It is clear that Muslim militants are taking out Muslim villagers who are perceived to be collaborating with the government,” Thaung Tun, national security adviser to Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi, told diplomats in Yangon.
At least 44 civilians have been killed and 27 have been kidnapped or gone missing in northern Rakhine in the past nine months, Thaung Tun said.
It was not possible to independently verify those figures or establish who was behind any of the killings described to journalists. Insurgents have denied targeting civilians.
But in two cases, including that of Abdu Sulwon, relatives of the victims broadly supported the official version.
If militants were to blame for at least some of the killings, it would add to evidence the insurgency that flared in October has not been fully rooted out, despite the government announcing the end of its security operation in February.
‘Back to grassroots’
A group known as Harakah Al-Yaqin (HaY) attacked Myanmar Border Guard Police (BGP) posts on Oct. 9, killing nine policemen and igniting the biggest crisis yet to face Nobel laureate Suu Kyi’s fledgling administration.
About 75,000 Rohingya fled to Bangladesh during the ensuing military crackdown, which was beset by allegations of rape, torture and extrajudicial killings by security forces.
Suu Kyi’s government has denied most of the allegations and is refusing access to a UN panel of experts, saying its mission will aggravate the situation on the ground in Rakhine.
Rohingya villagers and Myanmar security sources told Reuters earlier this year how HaY, or Faith Movement, began as a small group of leaders who recruited hundreds of young men in the run-up to the October attacks.
HaY says it is fighting for the rights of 1.1 million Rohingya who are denied citizenship and face restrictions on their movement in Buddhist-majority Myanmar.
Militants have rarely confronted security forces in recent months, but troops checking a report of a militant hideout in Tin May village on July 9 clashed with armed men, killing two and arresting two.
Anthony Davis, a security analyst with Jane’s at IHS-Markit, said the militants appeared to be regrouping.
“The pattern of events we’ve seen this year appears to reflect a strategy of going back to grassroots and working politically in villages,” said Davis.
“It appears they are attempting to eliminate potential intelligence liabilities and to a degree intimidate waverers among the population.”
A social media account that claims to speak for HaY, also known as the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, said in May the group had “never attacked or killed ‘any civilian’ as it is claimed in numerous false, fabricated and fake news.”
Fear and reprisals
Brig. Gen. Thura San Lwin, BGP commander, said information garnered from interrogations and the discovery of militant training camps indicated that at least some of the recent killings were committed by insurgents.
Other killings could be down to local disputes, he said.
Mohammad Tason, 28, was found dead with knife wounds across his neck and torso in Yinma Kyaung Taung village.
“My husband was on friendly terms with the military; I think that’s why they killed him,” said his wife Hawdiza, 23.
Like Haleda, Hawdiza was brought to meet reporters by administrators in Buthidaung township during a media visit conducted under the close watch of Border Guard Police.
Following Sulwon’s killing, security forces raided Maung Hna Ma village, torching at least one home, arresting several men and sending others into hiding, according to accounts given by women there who beckoned reporters from a river bank to tell of their missing husbands and sons.
“My son has nothing to do with terrorism,” said Marmuda Hatu, 48, whose son Saad Ullah, 24, was arrested. “They don’t have any evidence.”
Chris Lewa from monitoring group Arakan Project said the region was seeing “vicious cycles of violence” with security forces launching nighttime raids in response to killings.
Police Major Tun Hlaing said around 20 people had been arrested in Maung Hna Ma this week in the investigation into Abdu Sulwon’s killing. Most had been released, he said, but four suspected of working with the insurgents were being questioned.
Myanmar sees insurgents behind Rohingya killings in northwest
Myanmar sees insurgents behind Rohingya killings in northwest
North Korean leader Kim inspects new warship, claims progress toward nuclear-armed navy
- Kim has hailed the development of Choe Hyon as a significant advancement toward his goal of expanding the operational range and preemptive strike capabilities of his nuclear-armed military
SEOUL, South Korea: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspected his new destroyer for two straight days ahead of its commissioning and observed a test of cruise missiles fired from the warship, vowing to accelerate the nuclear-armament of his navy, state media said Thursday.
The North’s official Korean Central News Agency said Kim, during his visits to the western shipyard of Nampo on Tuesday and Wednesday, also inspected the construction of a third destroyer of the same class as his 5,000-ton warship, the Choe Hyon, first unveiled in April 2025.
Kim has hailed the development of Choe Hyon as a significant advancement toward his goal of expanding the operational range and preemptive strike capabilities of his nuclear-armed military. State media says the ship is designed to handle various weapons systems, including antiair and anti-naval weapons, as well as nuclear-capable ballistic and cruise missiles. South Korean military officials and experts say Choe Hyon was likely built with Russian assistance amid deepening military ties, but some have raised doubts about whether it’s ready for active service.
North Korea unveiled a second destroyer of the same class in May last year, but it was damaged during a botched launching ceremony at the northeastern port of Chongjin, triggering a furious reaction from Kim, who called the failure “criminal.” North Korea has said the new destroyer, named Kang Kon, was relaunched in June after repair, but outside experts have questioned whether the ship is fully operational.
After observing Choe Hyon’s sea trials on Tuesday, Kim said the ship met operational requirements and called it a symbol of the country’s expanding naval capabilities. He called for building two warships a year over the next five years of the same or higher class as the Choe Hyon.
Kim came back Wednesday to observe a test launch of cruise missiles from the Choe Hyon. State media published photos of him watching from shore as several projectiles rose from the vessel in plumes of white smoke and described the weapons as “strategic,” a term used for nuclear-capable systems.
After years of spurring ballistic missile development, Kim has shifted his focus more toward naval capabilities, including an ongoing construction of a nuclear-powered submarine. KCNA said the third destroyer under construction at the Nampo shipyard is expected to be completed by the ruling Workers’ Party’s founding anniversary in October.
Naval capabilities were also a key focus when Kim outlined his five-year military goals at last month’s Workers’ Party congress, which included calls for intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of being launched from underwater.
Kim on Tuesday claimed that his efforts to arm his navy with nuclear weapons were “making satisfactory” progress. He said those purported advancements would “constitute a radical change in defending our maritime sovereignty, something that we have not achieved for half a century.”
KCNA did not elaborate on what Kim meant. Some analysts say North Korea may be preparing to formally declare a maritime boundary that could encroach on waters controlled by rival South Korea.
As inter-Korean tensions worsen, Kim has repeatedly said he does not recognize the Northern Limit Line, drawn by the US-led UN Command at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War. The poorly drawn western sea boundary has been the site of several deadly naval clashes in past years.
At the party congress, Kim doubled down on plans to expand North Korea’s nuclear arsenal, which already is equipped with various weapons systems threatening the United States and US allies in Asia, and confirmed his hard-line view of rival South Korea.
But he left the door open for dialogue with the Trump administration, reiterating Pyongyang’s demand that Washington drop its insistence on denuclearization as a precondition for resuming long-stalled talks.
