NAYPYIDAW, Myanmar: Myanmar has called on its military to "launch operations" against ethnic Rakhine rebels behind a deadly attack on four police stations last week, a government spokesman said Monday, as a surge of violence forces thousands more from their homes.
The country's troubled western Rakhine state has seen a series of clashes in recent weeks between security forces and the Arakan Army (AA), an armed group calling for more autonomy for the state's ethnic Rakhine Buddhist population.
The area is one of the poorest in Myanmar and is scarred by deep ethnic and religious hatred.
A brutal army campaign in 2017 forced hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims over the border into Bangladesh, operations justified by the army as a way to stamp out Rohingya militants.
The latest violence by ethnic Rakhine rebels culminated on Friday — Myanmar's Independence Day — in brazen pre-dawn raids on four police posts in Buthidaung township near the Bangladesh border.
Authorities said that the attack by hundreds of militants left 13 police officers dead and nine wounded before the army, known locally as the Tatmadaw, were able to provide back-up.
The AA said that three of its fighters had been killed, accusing the military of using the police stations as a base from which to fire heavy artillery.
"The president's office has already instructed the Tatmadaw to launch operations to crack down on the insurgents," government spokesman Zaw Htay told reporters in the capital Naypyidaw.
Some 4,500 people have been displaced by the recent weeks of violence, the UN's humanitarian agency said on Monday.
Over the weekend, people streamed to nearby monasteries and other makeshift camps to escape the crossfire, carrying infants and bags of belongings.
The increase in fighting comes just two weeks after the military declared a four-month ceasefire with a number of armed groups in Kachin and Shan states on the other side of the country.
But Rakhine was a notable exception, and army operations against the AA have continued.
Myanmar's civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi stated that the peace process would be her top priority after her party swept to power in landmark 2015 elections.
There are around two dozen conflicts festering around the country's restive borderlands, some of which date back 70 years to when the nation declared independence from colonial power Britain.
Independent analyst David Mathieson told AFP the reasons behind the recent uptick in violence were still largely opaque.
But he said the fighting could mean that greater numbers of AA fighters have "infiltrated the borderlands and are extending their reach" in what he described as "classic guerrilla strategy".
The AA has expanded its ranks since its formation in 2009 and is now believed to have several thousand recruits.
Zaw Htay, the government spokesman, called on ethnic Rakhine people not to back the rebels.
"Consider Rakhine's future deeply. Think carefully about the future you want to see before giving them your support," he said.
Myanmar army to launch ‘crackdown’ on rebels
Myanmar army to launch ‘crackdown’ on rebels
- Western Rakhine state has seen a series of clashes in recent weeks between security forces and the Arakan Army
- Some 4,500 people have been displaced by the recent weeks of violence
NATO wants ‘automated’ defenses along borders with Russia: German general
- That zone would act as a defensive buffer before any enemy forces advanced into “a sort of hot zone,” said Lowin
- The AI-guided system would reinforce existing NATO weapons and deployed forces, the general said
FRANKFURT: NATO is moving to boost its defenses along European borders with Russia by creating an AI-assisted “automated zone” not reliant on human ground forces, a German general said in comments published Saturday.
That zone would act as a defensive buffer before any enemy forces advanced into “a sort of hot zone” where traditional combat could happen, said General Thomas Lowin, NATO’s deputy chief of staff for operations.
He was speaking to the German Sunday newspaper Welt am Sonntag.
The automated area would have sensors to detect enemy forces and activate defenses such as drones, semi-autonomous combat vehicles, land-based robots, as well as automatic air defenses and anti-missile systems, Lowin said.
He added, however, that any decision to use lethal weapons would “always be under human responsibility.”
The sensors — located “on the ground, in space, in cyberspace and in the air” — would cover an area of several thousand kilometers (miles) and detect enemy movements or deployment of weapons, and inform “all NATO countries in real time,” he said.
The AI-guided system would reinforce existing NATO weapons and deployed forces, the general said.
The German newspaper reported that there were test programs in Poland and Romania trying out the proposed capabilities, and all of NATO should be working to make the system operational by the end of 2027.
NATO’s European members are stepping up preparedness out of concern that Russia — whose economy is on a war footing because of its conflict in Ukraine — could seek to further expand, into EU territory.
Poland is about to sign a contract for “the biggest anti-drone system in Europe,” its defense minister, Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz, told the Gazeta Wyborcza daily.
Kosiniak-Kamysz did not say how much the deal, involving “different types of weaponry,” would cost, nor which consortium would ink the contract at the end of January.
He said it was being made to respond to “an urgent operational demand.”
