Myanmar army faces a new threat from armed ethnic foes who open a new front in a western state

By GRANT PECK
Associated Press

BANGKOK (AP) — Myanmar’s military government faced a fresh challenge when one of the ethnic armed groups it is fighting 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 para-military force, in Rakhine. That’s according to independent online media and residents of the area. The attacks took place despite a yearlong cease-fire with Myanmar’s military government. The Arakan Army is the well-trained military wing of the Rakhine ethnic minority movement seeking autonomy from the central government. Rakhine is the site of a brutal army counterinsurgency operation in 2017 that drove about 740,000 minority Rohingya Muslims to seek safety across the border in Bangladesh.