Military personnel and police reinforcements have poured into the Muslim-majority township of Maungdaw, northern Rakhine State, and have clashed with groups of up to 300 men, armed with pistols, swords and knives, according to official reports. Myanmar's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi said that her government was "exercising the rule of law" in dealing with the attacks, the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper said on Thursday. Armed men believed to be from the long-oppressed Rohingya Muslim minority launched a coordinated assault on three border police posts in the early hours Sunday, killing nine police, injuring five and making off with dozens of weapons and more than 10,000 rounds of ammunition. It’s a contentious issue among Buddhists in Rakhine, who consider the Rohingya to be illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh and customarily call them “Bengali.” The unrest has raised the spectre of a repeat of 2012 when sectarian violence ripped through Rakhine, killing more than 100 people and driving tens of thousands of Rohingya into displacement camps.
In a third day of fighting, an attack in Rakhine State kills four Myanmar soldiers.