Bangladesh security personnel watches Myanmar border guards seeking refuge in Bangladesh across the Naf River, while chasing Arakan rebels near the borders of southeastern Bangladesh and Myanmar on October 14, 2024.
Seizing Myanmar’s borders with Bangladesh and India has become central to the Arakan Army’s dream of autonomy and has driven its strategy during times of war and peace.
The Arakan army plans to occupy township near Bangladesh
In February last year, fighting briefly flared between the Arakan Army and the Myanmar military in Mee Tike village, near the border with Bangladesh in northern Rakhine State.
“This was the first time fighting between the AA and military took place in Maungdaw Township,” said Ko Min San*, a merchant who exports fish products to Bangladesh from Rakhine’s northernmost township.
But these four days of fighting were just a taste of things to come, as one of Myanmar’s most powerful ethnic armed groups sought to seize control of sections of the border between Rakhine and Bangladesh, and between southern Chin State and India to the north.
“At the time we were worried about the clashes, but the real fighting came five months later,” Min San said.
“The AA is trying to control the borders [with] Bangladesh and India. This is a strategic step for them,” explained Ko Zin Tun*, a political activist who works for a civil society organisation monitoring the Rakhine conflict.
Maungdaw is the main gateway for goods from Myanmar to Bangladesh, while Paletwa borders India’s Mizoram state and is an important part of the Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Project. A US$484 million infrastructure project being jointly implemented by India and Myanmar, it aims to supply India’s isolated northeastern states with goods shipped from the Indian port city of Kolkata to the Rakhine capital Sittwe by sea, and then by river to Paletwa and road to Mizoram.
“If an ethnic armed force wants to operate for a long time, it needs to gain a foothold in the border area near a neighbouring country,” Zin Tun said. “By dominating these areas, the AA will play an important role in trade with Bangladesh and India.”
Border grabs
Local sources told Frontier that during last year’s clashes, the AA seized control of two major military outposts on the Bangladesh-Maungdaw border and surrounded one on the India-Paletwa border.
Ko Aung Kyaw Thu*, a resident of Taung Pyo Letwe village in northern Maungdaw, said fighting surged between milestones 40-50 along the border in late July and early August. He said the AA blockaded and surrounded the military’s border posts, while the regime responded by severely restricting movement of civilians.
“The fighting there became very intense,” said Aung Kyaw Thu. “Hardly a day went by without the sound of gunfire.”
After nearly a month of heavy fighting, the AA released a statement declaring that it had seized the Milestone 40 base on August 31 and killed 19 enemy troops.
“The AA won’t give that place up,” said a source close to the armed group who asked to remain anonymous. He said the AA had deployed thousands of soldiers to Maungdaw alone.
In mid-September, the AA also seized control of the Mee Tike outpost near Milestone 37 on the Bangladesh border. While local media reports indicated the AA overran at least 30 military outposts during the fighting, locals said Milestone 40 and Mee Tike are two of the six most important border posts, and the AA remains in control of both.
In early September, the AA also launched an assault on the Myeik Wa border camp in Paletwa, on the Indian border. The group was unable to seize it, but has established control of the surrounding area, leaving the military in a precarious position should fighting resume.
“If the AA continues to capture more camps, it could control the entire border between Bangladesh and Maungdaw,” said Aung Kyaw Thu. “Until now, the military has not been able to retake those two stations.”
Zin Tun said the military may one day seek to retake them, but resumed fighting could also lead to the AA seizing more border posts.
“If the fighting doesn’t happen again, the AA can consolidate dominance over that part of the border. If fighting continues, they can attack other border guard stations,” he said, adding that the AA is “firmly in control” of parts of northern Maungdaw.
“The military will try to get those places back, so there may be fighting again.”
Bangladesh ignores fighting inside Bangladesh
Bangladesh stopped dozens of Myanmar security personnel from crossing into its territory to flee advancing rebel forces, a local government official based near their river border said on Tuesday (Jul 16).
Clashes have rocked Myanmar’s western frontiers since the Arakan Army (AA) attacked security forces last November, ending a ceasefire that had largely held since the country’s 2021 military coup.
Hundreds of Myanmar troops have taken refuge in India and Bangladesh since then, usually staying for days or weeks before being repatriated on junta-organised flights.
But on Sunday at least 66 members of Myanmar’s Border Guard Police (BGP) were sent back immediately while trying to cross the Naf river into Bangladesh.
“The BGP members wanted to enter Teknaf on two boats. The coast guard prevented their entry,” Mujibur Rahman, a councillor of Bangladesh’s southeastern border town of Teknaf.
There was no immediate comment from either Bangladesh’s coast guard or Myanmar junta representatives.
A Teknaf-based journalist who took photographs of the boats said the vessels came close to a pier in the town but were pushed back towards Myanmar later in the night.
“Some of them were not wearing any shirts,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Months of fierce fighting in Myanmar have seen steady advances by the AA in the western state of Rakhine, piling further pressure on the junta as it battles opponents elsewhere in the country.
Medical charity Doctors Without Borders last month announced it was halting all activities near the state’s border with Bangladesh due to an “extreme escalation of conflict” in the area.
Bangladesh has accepted more than 850 fleeing Myanmar soldiers this year, a senior government official told AFP on condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to speak to the media.
“We have already handed over 752 of them to Myanmar,” he said, adding around 100 border police and troops were waiting to be repatriated.
Bangladesh is home to around one million Rohingya refugees, most of whom fled Rakhine in 2017 after a military crackdown now the subject of a genocide investigation at a UN court.
Myanmar’s military government faced a fresh challenge Monday when one of the armed ethnic groups in an alliance that recently gained strategic territory in the country’s northeast launched attacks in the western state of Rakhine.
The Arakan Army launched surprise assaults on two outposts of the Border Guard Police, a paramilitary force, in Rakhine’s Rathedaung township, according to independent online media and area residents. The attacks took place despite a yearlong cease-fire with Myanmar’s military government.
Khaing Thukha, a spokesperson for the Arakan Army, told The Associated Press that two military security outposts in Rathedaung were seized by his group and more than 20 police officers from a station in another township, Kyauktaw, had laid down their weapons.
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