British lawmakers have delivered three defeats to the government's plans for leaving the European Union, before being sent home for a contentious...</s>NAYPYITAW - Myanmar's army has killed 13 rebel fighters in the western Rakhine State, a military spokesman said on Friday, as government troops battle to contain a new insurgency in the troubled region.

Fighting between security forces and the Arakan Army, an ethnic armed group seeking greater autonomy for Rakhine, has forced some 5,000 civilians to flee their homes since early December, according to the United Nations.

The violence has brought fresh turmoil to the region, the site of a massive crackdown on the Rohingya Muslim minority in 2017, and represents another setback for the Buddhist-majority country's embattled peace process.

"Between Jan. 5 and 16, 2019, there were eight clashes and five landmine explosions," said Major General Tun Tun Nyi, speaking at a rare press conference in the capital, Naypyitaw. "Thirteen enemy bodies and three weapons were seized, and some soldiers died and were injured on our side," he said.

He declined to elaborate on the number of government troops killed, saying it was "not necessary" to give the figures.

The Arakan Army could not be immediately reached for comment, but a spokesman outside Myanmar previously told Reuters five bodies seized by the military did not belong to their fighters.

The recent surge of violence began after insurgents killed 13 police and wounded nine in attacks on four police posts on Jan. 4, as Myanmar celebrated Independence Day, state media reported.

Yanghee Lee, U.N. special rapporteur for human rights in Myanmar, voiced alarm at the "escalating violence" in Rakhine and urged both sides to show restraint and protect civilians.

She condemned the Jan. 4 attack by the Arakan Army and the Myanmar military's "disproportionate response," citing reports that heavy weapons, artillery, and helicopters had been used in civilian areas, leading to civilian casualties.

"I am also seriously concerned about the dangerous rhetoric being used by the government. The ethnic Rakhine population must not be demonized and targeted by the military on suspicion of association with the AA," Lee said in a statement.

There was no immediate response from the Myanmar authorities to her remarks.

Myanmar' civilian administration last week called on the military to "crush" the rebels, according to a government spokesman.

On Friday, the military said Aung San Suu Kyi, who runs the country as state counselor, personally ordered the crackdown, stating that the Arakan Army, which recruits from among the mainly Buddhist Rakhine ethnic group, should face the same treatment as Rohingya insurgents.

The military onslaught against the Rohingya in 2017, which the U.N. and Western nations have called ethnic cleansing, was preceded by attacks on security forces by fighters calling themselves the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army. The government denies the charge of ethnic cleansing.

"During negotiations at the president's house on January 9, state counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi said AA were terrorists and instructed to crack down effectively," Tun Tun Nyi said. "If not, others would point out that ARSA was cracked down on because it's from a different religion and AA was not because it is an ethnic group," he said.

A government spokesman did not answer calls seeking comment. The conflict is the latest crisis facing Nobel laureate Suu Kyi's administration, which swept to power in 2015 promising to bring an end to the country's myriad civil wars.

The United Nations has called for "rapid and unimpeded" aid access to the conflict zone, after the state government last week banned non-governmental organizations and the U.N. from five townships affected by the fighting.</s>Myanmar army ordered to take offensive against Arakan Army

NAYPYITAW, Myanmar (AP) — Myanmar's military announced Friday that the Arakan Army, a Buddhist rebel group in Rakhine state, has been classified a terrorist organization after mounting a flurry of recent attacks.

The state earlier was the site of a brutal counterinsurgency campaign by the military against the Muslim Rohingya minority, causing more than 700,000 to flee to neighboring Bangladesh.

Military officers said at a news conference in the capital, Naypyitaw, that leader Aung San Suu Kyi ordered security forces to launch the offensive against the Arakan Army.

The insurgent group, which seeks autonomy from the central government, killed 13 police officers and wounded nine in attacks on Jan. 4. The moves to counter the rebels were decided at a Jan. 7 meeting at Myanmar's presidential offices, the officers said.

Suu Kyi "said the Arakan Army is just a terrorist group and instructed us to defeat them effectively, quickly and clearly," Maj. Gen. Nyi Nyi Tun, vice chairman of the Myanmar Military Information Committee, told reporters. A terrorist designation criminalizes a group and bans all communication with them.

He said Suu Kyi suggested that if she did not order the military to attack the Arakan Army, the international community would accuse her of religious prejudice for attacking the Muslim guerrillas of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army but not Buddhist rebels who committed similar actions with similar goals.

The military in Buddhist-majority Myanmar has been accused of ethnic cleansing, and even genocide, against the Muslim Rohingya. Its counterinsurgency campaign was triggered when a group of Rohingya guerrillas attacked security outposts in August 2017.

The officers said the military clashed with the Arakan Army 15 times in 2015, 26 times in 2016, 56 times in 2017 and 61 times in 2018, while the rebels also planted some mines. They said there have been at least eight armed encounters this year. The guerrillas are known to have trained in areas controlled by other ethnic rebel forces, especially in Kachin state.

The Arakan Army, founded in 2009, is estimated to have several thousand well-armed and organized uniformed members, in contrast to the ragtag and virtually dormant Rohingya guerrillas.

Myanmar's military in December announced cease-fires in five areas where ethnic rebellions are active, but did not include Rakhine state because it had information that the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army planned attacks, the officers said.

Brig. Gen. Zaw Min Tun said he believed that the fighting with the Arakan Army would not interfere with plans to repatriate Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh.</s>NAYPYITAW (Reuters): Myanmar’s army has killed 13 rebel fighters in the western Rakhine State, a military spokesman said on Friday, as government troops battle to contain a new insurgency in the troubled region.

Fighting between security forces and the Arakan Army, an ethnic armed group seeking greater autonomy for Rakhine, has forced some 5,000 civilians to flee their homes since early December, according to the United Nations.

The violence has brought fresh turmoil to the region, the site of a massive crackdown on the Rohingya Muslim minority in 2017, and represents another setback for the Buddhist-majority country’s embattled peace process.

“Between Jan. 5 and 16, 2019, there were eight clashes and five landmine explosions,” said Major General Tun Tun Nyi, speaking at a rare press conference in the capital, Naypyitaw.

“Thirteen enemy bodies and three weapons were seized, and some soldiers died and were injured on our side,” he said.

He declined to elaborate on the number of government troops killed, saying it was “not necessary” to give the figures.

The Arakan Army could not be immediately reached for comment, but a spokesman outside Myanmar previously told Reuters five bodies seized by the military did not belong to their fighters.

The recent surge of violence began after insurgents killed 13 police and wounded nine in attacks on four police posts on Jan. 4, as Myanmar celebrated Independence Day, state media reported.

Myanmar’s civilian administration last week called on the military to “crush” the rebels, according to a government spokesman.

On Friday, the military said Aung San Suu Kyi, who runs the country as state counselor, personally ordered the crackdown, stating that the Arakan Army, which recruits from among the mainly Buddhist Rakhine ethnic group, should face the same treatment as Rohingya insurgents.

The military onslaught against the Rohingya in 2017, which the U.N. and Western nations have called ethnic cleansing, was preceded by attacks on security forces by fighters calling themselves the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army. The government denies the charge of ethnic cleansing.

“During negotiations at the president’s house on January 9, state counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi said AA were terrorists and instructed to crack down effectively,” Tun Tun Nyi said.

“If not, others would point out that ARSA was cracked down on because it’s from a different religion and AA was not because it is an ethnic group,” he said.

The conflict is the latest crisis facing Nobel laureate Suu Kyi’s administration, which swept to power in 2015 promising to bring an end to the country’s myriad civil wars.

Myanmar governments have battled various autonomy-seeking ethnic minority insurgent groups since shortly after independence from Britain in 1948, though some have struck ceasefire agreements.

The United Nations has called for “rapid and unimpeded” aid access to the conflict zone, after the state government last week banned non-governmental organizations and the U.N. from five townships affected by the fighting.</s>Myanmar army ordered to take offensive against Arakan Army

NAYPYITAW, Myanmar (AP) — Myanmar's military announced Friday that the Arakan Army, a Buddhist rebel group in Rakhine state, has been classified a terrorist organization after mounting a flurry of recent attacks.

The state earlier was the site of a brutal counterinsurgency campaign by the military against the Muslim Rohingya minority, causing more than 700,000 to flee to neighboring Bangladesh.

Military officers said at a news conference in the capital, Naypyitaw, that leader Aung San Suu Kyi ordered security forces to launch the offensive against the Arakan Army.

The insurgent group, which seeks autonomy from the central government, killed 13 police officers and wounded nine in attacks on Jan. 4. The moves to counter the rebels were decided at a Jan. 7 meeting at Myanmar's presidential offices, the officers said.

Suu Kyi "said the Arakan Army is just a terrorist group and instructed us to defeat them effectively, quickly and clearly," Maj. Gen. Nyi Nyi Tun, vice chairman of the Myanmar Military Information Committee, told reporters. A terrorist designation criminalizes a group and bans all communication with them.

He said Suu Kyi suggested that if she did not order the military to attack the Arakan Army, the international community would accuse her of religious prejudice for attacking the Muslim guerrillas of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army but not Buddhist rebels who committed similar actions with similar goals.

The military in Buddhist-majority Myanmar has been accused of ethnic cleansing, and even genocide, against the Muslim Rohingya. Its counterinsurgency campaign was triggered when a group of Rohingya guerrillas attacked security outposts in August 2017.

The officers said the military clashed with the Arakan Army 15 times in 2015, 26 times in 2016, 56 times in 2017 and 61 times in 2018, while the rebels also planted some mines. They said there have been at least eight armed encounters this year. The guerrillas are known to have trained in areas controlled by other ethnic rebel forces, especially in Kachin state.

The Arakan Army, founded in 2009, is estimated to have several thousand well-armed and organized uniformed members, in contrast to the ragtag and virtually dormant Rohingya guerrillas.

Myanmar's military in December announced cease-fires in five areas where ethnic rebellions are active, but did not include Rakhine state because it had information that the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army planned attacks, the officers said.

Brig. Gen. Zaw Min Tun said he believed that the fighting with the Arakan Army would not interfere with plans to repatriate Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh.

At U.N. headquarters in New York, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres spoke about his "enormous frustration with the lack of progress" by Myanmar's government in creating conditions for the return of the more than 700,000 Rohingyas who fled to Bangladesh in 2017 and are living in "extremely difficult circumstances."

"It is absolutely essential to create the conditions of confidence and trust," he told a news conference. "It's not only physical reconstruction, it's a matter of reconciliation of communities and strong commitment by the government for that reconciliation of communities to be possible, and for the safety of the Rohingya population to be guaranteed."

"Unfortunately, the truth is the situation on the ground has not been conducive to it. Things have been too slow," he said. "One of the dramatic aspects when you fail in solving the root causes of the problem is that violence then tends to erupt again, and that's what we have seen recently in Myanmar."

"We insist in the need to create conditions for them to be willing to go back" to Myanmar, Guterres said.

One of first steps could be to solve the problem of the Rohingya who are internally displaced which would "give credibility" to future returns, he said.</s>NAYPYITAW, Myanmar — Myanmar's military says the Arakan Army, a rebel group in the same region where the government conducted an brutal counterinsurgency campaign against the Muslim Rohingya minority, has been classified a terrorist organization after mounting a flurry of recent attacks.

A military public relations team said at a news conference in the capital, Naypyitaw, that leader Aung San Suu Kyi ordered security forces to launch an offensive against the Arakan Army in Rakhine state.

The insurgent group killed 13 police officers and wounded nine in attacks on Jan. 4.

A separate army offensive that caused more than 700,000 Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh was triggered when a group of Rohingya guerrillas staged similar attacks in August 2017.

The Arakan Army represents anti-government elements among the area's Buddhist Rakhine ethnic group.</s>Naypyitaw: Myanmar's military announced Friday that the Arakan Army, a Buddhist rebel group in Rakhine state, has been classified a terrorist organization after mounting a flurry of recent attacks.

The state earlier was the site of a brutal counterinsurgency campaign by the military against the Muslim Rohingya minority, causing more than 700,000 to flee to neighboring Bangladesh.

Military officers said at a news conference in the capital, Naypyitaw, that leader Aung San Suu Kyi ordered security forces to launch the offensive against the Arakan Army.

The insurgent group, which seeks autonomy from the central government, killed 13 police officers and wounded nine in attacks on January 4. The moves to counter the rebels were decided at a January 7 meeting at Myanmar's presidential offices, the officers said.</s>Myanmar's army has killed 13 rebel fighters in the western Rakhine State, a military spokesman says, as government troops battle to contain a new insurgency in the troubled region.

Fighting between security forces and the Arakan Army, an ethnic armed group seeking greater autonomy for Rakhine, has forced some 5000 civilians to flee their homes since early December, according to the United Nations.

The violence has brought fresh turmoil to the region, the site of a massive crackdown on the Rohingya Muslim minority in 2017, and represents another setback for the Buddhist-majority country's embattled peace process.

"Between January 5 and 16, 2019, there were eight clashes and five landmine explosions," said Major General Tun Tun Nyi, speaking at a rare press conference in the capital, Naypyitaw.

"Thirteen enemy bodies and three weapons were seized, and some soldiers died and were injured on our side," he said.

He declined to elaborate on the number of government troops killed, saying it was "not necessary" to give the figures.

The Arakan Army could not be immediately reached for comment, but a spokesman outside Myanmar previously told Reuters five bodies seized by the military did not belong to their fighters.

The recent surge of violence began after insurgents killed 13 police and wounded nine in attacks on four police posts on January 4, as Myanmar celebrated Independence Day, state media reported.

Myanmar's civilian administration last week called on the military to "crush" the rebels, according to a government spokesman.

On Friday, the military said Aung San Suu Kyi, who runs the country as state counsellor, personally ordered the crackdown, stating that the Arakan Army, which recruits from among the mainly Buddhist Rakhine ethnic group, should face the same treatment as Rohingya insurgents.

The military onslaught against the Rohingya in 2017, which the UN and Western nations have called ethnic cleansing, was preceded by attacks on security forces by fighters calling themselves the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army.

The government denies the charge of ethnic cleansing.

Myanmar governments have battled various autonomy-seeking ethnic minority insurgent groups since shortly after independence from Britain in 1948, though some have struck ceasefire agreements.

The United Nations has called for "rapid and unimpeded" aid access to the conflict zone, after the state government last week banned non-governmental organisations and the UN from five townships affected by the fighting.</s>Myanmar’s army says it killed 13 ethnic Rakhine fighters in counter attacks, after the well-armed group carried out deadly strikes on police posts earlier this month.

Rakhine state has seen new levels of violence in recent weeks between the Arakan Army (AA) – insurgents fighting for greater autonomy for ethnic Rakhine Buddhists – and security forces.

Many of the battles are taking place in the same region from which more than 720,000 Rohingya Muslims fled to Bangladesh after August 2017, when the army launched a crackdown the UN deemed ethnic cleansing.

The AA are a more formidable force than the fighters claiming to represent the Rohingya and have inflicted historically higher death tolls on the military.

On Myanmar’s independence day on January 4, the AA launched pre-dawn raids that killed 13 police officers and wounded nine before the army stepped in, setting off violence that has displaced thousands.

But the army said it hit back, killing the same number of AA rebels in total in operations from January 5 to 16.

“We got 13 dead bodies of enemies and seized three weapons,” major general Tun Tun Nyi said in a rare press conference in the capital Naypyidaw.

“Some officers and soldiers from our side were killed,” he added, without releasing the figures.

Myanmar’s military almost never provides statistics on casualties suffered in fighting against the country’s myriad ethnic armed groups.

The army called a temporary ceasefire against different insurgents in northern Myanmar last month, but Rakhine state was excluded from the move because of the AA and the Rohingya militant group, which is called the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army.

The troubled state is a complex patchwork of Rakhine, Rohingya, and other ethnic minorities that intercommunal violence has largely driven apart.

The United Nations special rapporteur for human rights in Myanmar, Yanghee Lee, said that all the minority groups in Rakhine have “suffered enough” and urged the AA and the army to do more to protect civilians as the violence persists.

Most of the Rohingya in the northern part of the state have been pushed into Bangladesh, where they refuse to return to Myanmar without guarantees of safety and citizenship.

The UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres criticised as “too slow” Myanmar’s efforts to allow their return, describing the lack of progress as a source of “enormous frustration”.</s>Myanmar's army said Friday it killed 13 ethnic Rakhine fighters in counterstrikes after the well-armed group carried out deadly attacks on police posts earlier this month.

Rakhine state has seen new levels of violence in recent weeks between the Arakan Army (AA) -- insurgents fighting for greater autonomy for ethnic Rakhine Buddhists -- and security forces.

Many of the battles are taking place in the same region from which more than 720,000 Rohingya Muslims fled to Bangladesh after August 2017 when the army launched a crackdown the UN deemed ethnic cleansing.

The AA are a more formidable force than the fighters claiming to represent the Rohingya and have inflicted historically higher death tolls on the military.

On January 4, also Myanmar's independence day, the AA launched pre-dawn raids that killed 13 police officers and wounded nine before the army stepped in, setting off violence that has displaced thousands.

But the army hit back, killing the same number of AA rebels in total in operations from January 5-16.

"We got 13 dead bodies of enemies and seized three weapons," Major General Tun Tun Nyi said in a rare press conference in the capital Naypyidaw.

"Some officers and soldiers from our side were killed," he added, without releasing the figures.

Myanmar's military almost never provides statistics on casualties suffered in fighting against the country's myriad ethnic armed groups.

The army called a temporary ceasefire against different insurgents in northern Myanmar last month but Rakhine state was excluded from the move because of the AA and the Rohingya militant group, which is called the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA).

The troubled state is a complex patchwork of Rakhine, Rohingya, and other ethnic minorities that intercommunal violence has largely driven apart.

Most of the Rohingya in the northern part of the state have been pushed into Bangladesh, where they refuse to return to Myanmar without guarantees of safety and citizenship.

The United Nations has called for Myanmar's top generals to be investigated for genocide as a result of the operations but they reject the accusation.

The fighting with AA rebels complicates an already fraught repatriation process for the Rohingya.

Brigadier General Zaw Min Tun blamed the AA insurgents for the police post attacks earlier this month and accused them of "stabbing from the back".
Myanmar's military announces that it has killed 13 Arakan Army fighters in a series of eight armed clashes in Rakhine State, spanning from January 5 to 13. In the same press conference, a military spokesman states that the Arakan Army had been newly classified as a terrorist organization.