The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA; ), formerly known as Harakah al-Yaqin (; ), is a Rohingya insurgent group originating from northern Rakhine State, Myanmar. According to a December 2016 report by the International Crisis Group, it is led by Ataullah abu Ammar Jununi, a Rohingya man who was born in Karachi, Pakistan, and grew up in Saudi Arabia. Who Are the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army?. Zachary Abuza. Radio Free Asia. September 1, 2017. Other members of its leadership include a committee of Rohingya émigrés in Saudi Arabia."ARSA: The birth of an insurgency", Dhaka Tribune, 19 October 2017 Ataullah and the group's leadership have allegedly received military training from the Pakistani Taliban.
Myanmar's Anti-Terrorism Central Committee declared ARSA a terrorist group on 25 August 2017 in accordance with the country's counter-terrorism law. ARSA is also considered a terrorist group by Malaysia.
ARSA has been accused by Myanmar's government of being involved with and subsidised by foreign Islamists, despite there being no firm evidence proving such allegations. ARSA subsequently released a statement on 28 August 2017, calling government allegations against it as "baseless" and claiming that its main purpose is to defend the rights of Rohingyas. Despite this claim, ARSA members have been arrested for murders and acts of arson against other Rohingyas, particularly community leaders, residing in Bangladesh.
History
Prior to 2016 According to an ARSA spokesperson, the group was founded as Harakah al-Yaqin () in 2013, following the 2012 Rakhine State riots. A former member of ARSA described how he was recruited by the group's leader, Ataullah abu Ammar Jununi, three years prior to the attacks in October 2016. Jununi had approached villagers, asking for five to ten recruits to join his group and telling them that the time had come to "stop the mistreatment of the Rohingya people". Prior to the October 2016 attacks, ARSA had merely patrolled villages armed with bamboo sticks, making sure that villagers prayed at mosques. According to Rohingya locals and Burmese security officials, the group had again began approaching Rohingya men from various villages for recruitment six months prior to its first attack in October 2016, this time with the intention of training them across the border in Bangladesh for a future attack in Myanmar.
2016 In October 2016, the group claimed responsibility for attacks on military posts along the Bangladesh-Myanmar border, which left nine border officers and four soldiers dead. The Tatmadaw (Myanmar Armed Forces) announced on 15 November 2016 that a total of 69 insurgents had been killed by security forces in the recent fighting. The ICG reported on 14 December 2016 that in interviews with ARSA, its leaders claimed to have links to private donors in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The ICG also released unconfirmed reports that Rohingya villagers had been "secretly trained" by Afghan and Pakistani fighters.
2017 Burmese state media reported on 22 June 2017 that three insurgents had been killed by security forces in a raid on an insurgent camp supposedly belonging to ARSA, as part of a two-day "area clearance operation" by the government. Authorities confiscated gunpowder, ski masks and wooden rifles used for training.
In July 2017, the Burmese government accused ARSA of murdering 34 to 44 civilians and kidnapping 22 others in reprisal attacks against those ARSA have perceived as government collaborators. ARSA denied the accusations.
On 25 August 2017, the group claimed responsibility for coordinated attacks on at least two dozen police posts and an attempted raid on an army base.Rohingya crisis: Finding out the truth about Arsa militants. BBC News. 10 October 2017 The government gave an official death toll of 77 Rohingya insurgents and 12 security forces in northern Maungdaw following the attacks. The government stated that ARSA insurgents had attacked a police station in the Maungdaw District with a handmade bomb alongside the coordinated attacks on several police posts. ARSA claimed they were taking "defensive actions" in 25 different locations and accused government soldiers of raping and killing civilians. The group also claimed that Rathedaung had been under a blockade for more than two weeks, starving the Rohingya, and that government forces were preparing to do the same in Maungdaw. The Myanmar Army also blamed ARSA for the killings of 99 Bengali Hindus in the Kha Maung Seik massacre, which occurred on the same day as the attacks.
Over 4,000 ethnic Rakhines fled their villages on 26 August 2017, as fighting between ARSA and the Tatmadaw escalated.
In late August 2017, the Burmese government accused ARSA of killing 12 civilians, including Hindus and Muslims, some of whom were suspected by ARSA of being government informants. On 24 September 2017, Myanmar's military accused ARSA of killing 28 Hindus in Ye Baw Kya village in the previous month after they uncovered their bodies in a mass grave. ARSA released a statement on 28 August 2017, calling government allegations against it as "baseless" and stating that ARSA only seeks to defend Rohingyas and their rights. An ARSA spokesman also denied allegations that it was behind the killings and accused Buddhist nationalists of spreading lies to divide Hindus and Muslims. Bangladesh meanwhile has proposed joint military operations with Myanmar against ARSA.
A one-month unilateral ceasefire was declared by ARSA on 9 September 2017, in an attempt to allow aid groups and humanitarian workers safe access into northern Rakhine State. In a statement, the group urged the government to lay down their arms and agree to their ceasefire, which would have been in effect from 10 September until 9 October (the one-year anniversary of the first attacks on Burmese security forces by ARSA). The government rejected the ceasefire, with Zaw Htay, the spokesperson for the State Counsellor's office, stating, "We have no policy to negotiate with terrorists.""Hundreds dead in Myanmar as the Rohingya crisis explodes again." 10 September 2017, The Washington Post in Chicago Tribune retrieved 12 September 2017 ARSA responded on 7 October 2017 that they would respond to any peace initiatives proposed by Myanmar's government, but added that their one-month unilateral ceasefire was about to end. Despite the ceasefire ending on 9 October, the government stated that there were no signs of any new attacks.
On 9 November 2017, Myint Khyine, the Burmese secretary of the Immigration and Population Department, blamed the deaths of 18 village leaders in the last three months on ARSA in Muslim-majority Maungdaw and Buthidaung. The victims were village leaders who helped the Immigration and Population Department issue national verification cards to Rohingya residents.
In September 2017, Bangladeshi sources stated that the possibility of cooperation between Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and ARSA was "extremely high". Bangladesh's Minister of Road Transport and Bridges(Contemporary), Obaidul Quader, stated during a reception organised by the nation's deputy high commission in Kolkata, India that his country was investigating the allegations.
In November 2017, it was reported that members of the Rohingya diaspora in Malaysia were providing financial support to ARSA.
2018 ARSA claimed responsibility for an ambush carried out on 5 January 2018 in the village of Turaing, which reportedly injured six members of Myanmar's security forces and a civilian driver.
In late November 2018, Hindu community leaders in Myanmar claimed that ARSA had been warning Hindu refugees in Bangladesh not to return to Rakhine State after Burmese authorities called for their repatriation.
2019 On 16 January, Myanmar state media reported that six police officers had been injured in an ambush by ten ARSA insurgents in Watkyein village bridge in Maungdaw. In March, ARSA's leadership called for their followers to refrain from criminal activity in refugee camps in Bangladesh refugee camps. This was statement was made in response to reports of killings and abductions in the refugee camps. Bangladeshi media blamed ARSA for the crimes, while ARSA denies any responsibility.
2020
Reports circulated in May 2020 that ARSA had reformed in Maungdaw after several months of inactivity. On 2 May, the Myawady Daily reported that two Burmese police officers had been attacked by 41 ARSA insurgents near the Bangladesh–Myanmar border.
Two alleged ARSA insurgents died in a confrontation with Myanmar security forces at the Bangladeshi border on 4 June. According to military spokesman and Brigadier General Zaw Min Tun, the clash occurred during routine border security at Mee Dike village and began when around 30 ARSA insurgents opened fire.
Three civilians were killed and six others were wounded when their vehicle struck an alleged ARSA mine in Maungdaw Township on 17 November.
2021
Rohingya leader Mohammed Mohib Ullah, who had raised the issue of human rights violations of Rohingyas and was an opponent of ARSA, was killed on 29 September 2021. His brother accused the group of being behind the attack, but the group denied it. The Bangladesh Police said in March 2022 that the group was behind it and assassinated him due to his growing popularity.
Some Rohingyas told Reuters that ARSA and other armed gangs enforced their rules at night in refugee camps, abducting their critics and instructing women to abide by conservative Islamic norms. An attack on the Darul Ulum Nadwatul Ulama Al-Islamia Madrasa in the Moinarghona camp-18, located in Ukhiya, resulted in deaths of six refugees and injuries to eight others on 22 October. Some of the eyewitnesses blamed ARSA.
Tom Andrews, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Myanmar, stated on 19 December that he had received credible reports of ARSA killing, torturing, abducting and intimidating Rohingya refugees in camps. Bangladesh's Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen however denied the group's presence in the camps.
The group started reemerging in the Maungdaw region around November 2021, after allying with the National Unity Government formed in opposition to the military junta that took power after the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état. Clashes broke out between ARSA and the Tatmadaw in November.
On 7 December, 23 residents of Khone Taing village were shot at by ARSA, injuring one.
2022
Several images and videos appeared on social media in early-January 2022, purportedly showing more than 50 members of the group along with its leaders taking part in a military drill in Maungdaw.
Bangladesh Police on 18 July 2022 announced arrests of Nur Mohammad, chairman of ARSA's fatwa committee, and Abu Bakkar, a commander of the group accused of the killings of Rohingyas in October 2021. The two were stated to have been arrested on 7 and 17 July respectively. Armed Police Battalion unit 14 commander Naimul Haque claimed that they had arrested 834 Rohingyas linked to ARSA in the last six months.
In October 2022, two Rohingya community leaders were killed by a dozen people in an attempt to assert control of drug trafficking activity and intimidate leadership in the camps. According to an anonymous senior police officer of an elite police unit that was tasked with security in the camps, ARSA was the organization to be blamed for the killings.
Bangladeshi officials accused ARSA of being responsible for the killing of an intelligence officer and a Rohingya woman on 14 November during a counter-narcotics operations near the border with Myanmar. The group denied any responsibility.
2023
ARSA and the Rohingya Solidarity Organization (RSO) on 18 January 2023 clashed in a refugee camp, located near the Naikhongchhari Upazila in the no man's land of the Bangladesh–Myanmar border. One RSO member was killed and hundreds of refugees fled due to the fighting.