More towns fall to Arakan Army in northern Rakhine State

Myanmar’s military has lost control of two more major towns in northern Rakhine State, bringing the total to fall to the Arakan Army (AA) in recent days to three, the group said on Wednesday. In a statement, the AA said it had captured every military position in and around the towns of Kyauktaw and Mrauk-U except one. “As of February 7, after more than a month and a half of fighting, the AA has taken control of every base in Minbya, Kyauktaw, and Mrauk-U except the one in Mrauk-U under Police Battalion 31,” the statement claimed. Minbya, a town some 80 miles south of Kyauktaw, was seized by the ethnic Rakhine armed group on Tuesday. The AA has been waging a major offensive across much of Rakhine State and parts of neighbouring Chin State since mid-November of last year. On January 14, it took control of the southern Chin State town of Paletwa, and the following week it captured Pauktaw, a town less than 15 miles east of the Rakhine State capital Sittwe. On Tuesday, the group also seized a key outpost on the border with neighbouring Bangladesh. According to Bangladeshi news outlet the Dhaka Tribune, a total of 327 Myanmar junta troops have fled across the border to escape the fighting over the past week, including 63 on Wednesday. On Thursday, junta mouthpiece the Global New Light of Myanmar reported that the regime’s foreign minister, Than Swe, had met with Bangladeshi ambassador Dr. Md. Monwar Hossain in Naypyitaw to discuss “peace and stability” along the border. Meanwhile, the AA said that two ethnic Rohingya armed groups, the Arakan Rohingya Army (ARA) and the Rohingya Solidarity Organization (RSO), helped more than 200 junta soldiers escape across the border during the recent fighting for control of two border outposts near Taungpyo, a village in Maungdaw Township. “After the capture of the Taungpyo outposts, clearance operations were carried out, during which ARA and RSO, alongside Myanmar border troops, intensively fought back against the AA,” the group claimed in a statement released on Wednesday. The statement also included photos of large caches of weapons and ammunition seized during the capture of the outposts, along with drugs, computers, and ARA flags that were also allegedly found there. While the RSO has been accused in the past of abducting Rohingya civilians for ransom, the ARA has not generally been associated with criminal activity. Speaking to Myanmar Now on Thursday, an RSO spokesperson dismissed the AA’s allegations as “complete propaganda.”

More towns fall to Arakan Army in northern Rakhine State

The AA also accused two ethnic Rohingya armed groups of fighting alongside junta forces during recent clashes on the Bangladeshi border

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