Myanmar Army Loses Control of Western Border After Bloody Siege

The final moments at the BGP5 barracks were marked by intense violence. Initially, a distorted voice from a speaker demanded their surrender, followed by a powerful onslaught of artillery, rockets, and rifle fire that devastated the structures where hundreds of soldiers were sheltering. BGP5, which stands for Border Guard Police, represented the Myanmar military junta’s last stronghold in northern Rakhine State, situated along the Bangladesh border. Footage released by the insurgent Arakan Army (AA), which had surrounded the base, depicted their diverse fighters, many without shoes, discharging various weapons into the facility, while air force jets flew overhead. This engagement was a fierce confrontation, potentially the most brutal in the civil war that has gripped Myanmar since the military’s 2021 coup. “They had dug deep ditches filled with spikes around the base,” an AA source told the BBC. “There were bunkers and reinforced buildings. They laid more than a thousand mines. Many of our fighters lost limbs, or their lives, trying to get through.” For General Min Aung Hlaing, the coup leader, this marked another significant defeat following a year of military setbacks. His regime has, for the first time, relinquished command of an entire border: the 270km (170 miles) stretch separating Myanmar from Bangladesh is now entirely under AA authority. With only Sittwe, the Rakhine State capital, remaining firmly under military control (though isolated from the rest of the nation), the AA is poised to become the first insurgent group to achieve full command of a state. The army has been in rapid retreat from the Arakan Army since the start of the year, ceding numerous towns. The final army units withdrew in September to BGP5, a compound spanning approximately 20 hectares just outside the border town of Maungdaw, where the AA initiated its siege. BGP5 was constructed on the former site of Myo Thu Gyi, a Muslim Rohingya village that was razed during the violent expulsion of a large portion of the Rohingya population by the armed forces in 2017. The site was the first of many burned villages observed during a visit to Maungdaw immediately after the military operation in September of that year, presenting a mass of charred debris amidst lush tropical vegetation, its residents either killed or compelled to flee to Bangladesh. Upon a return visit two years later, the new police complex had already been erected, with all trees cleared to provide defenders with an unobstructed view of any attacking force. The AA source informed that their advance towards the base was exceptionally slow, necessitating the insurgents to excavate their own trenches for cover. The group does not disclose its casualties. However, based on the intensity of the fighting in Maungdaw, which commenced in June, it is probable that hundreds of its own troops were lost. Throughout the siege, the Myanmar air force maintained a continuous bombardment of Maungdaw, forcing the remaining civilians to evacuate the town. Its aircraft delivered supplies to the encircled soldiers at night, but these provisions proved insufficient. A local source indicated that while they had ample rice stored in the bunkers, they were unable to obtain treatment for their injuries, leading to widespread demoralization among the soldiers. Surrenders began last weekend. AA video footage depicts soldiers emerging in a distressed condition, waving white cloths. Some were limping on improvised crutches or hopping, their injured legs wrapped in rags. Few were wearing shoes. Inside the damaged buildings, the victorious insurgents filmed numerous bodies. The AA claims that over 450 soldiers perished in the siege. It has released images of the captured commander, Brigadier-General Thurein Tun, and his officers kneeling beneath the flagpole, which now displays the insurgents’ banner. Pro-military commentators in Myanmar have expressed their discontent on social media. “Min Aung Hlaing, you have not asked any of your children to serve in the military,” wrote one. “Is this how you use us? Are you happy seeing all those deaths in Rakhine?” “At this rate, all that will be left of the Tatmadaw [military] will be Min Aung Hlaing and a flagpole,” wrote another. The capture of BGP5 also highlights the Arakan Army as one of Myanmar’s most effective combat forces. Formed in 2009—considerably later than most other insurgent groups in Myanmar—by young ethnic Rakhine men who had migrated to the Chinese border on the opposite side of the country in search of employment, the AA is a constituent of the Three Brotherhood Alliance, which has inflicted the majority of the defeats suffered by the junta since last year. The other two members of the alliance have remained on the border in Shan State. However, the AA relocated back to Rakhine eight years ago to launch its armed campaign for self-governance, leveraging historical grievances among the Rakhine population concerning poverty, isolation, and central government neglect of their state. The AA leaders have demonstrated intelligence, discipline, and the capacity to inspire their fighters. They are already managing extensive areas of Rakhine State under their control as if operating their own state. Furthermore, they possess effective weaponry, attributed to their connections with older insurgent groups on the Chinese border, and appear to be well-funded. A more significant question, however, pertains to the extent to which the various ethnic insurgent groups are prepared to prioritize the objective of overthrowing the military junta. Publicly, they affirm this goal, alongside the shadow government deposed by the coup and the hundreds of volunteer peoples’ defence forces that have emerged to support it. In exchange for the backing it receives from the ethnic insurgents, the shadow government is pledging a new federal political system that will grant Myanmar’s regions self-rule. Nevertheless, the other two members of the Three Brotherhood Alliance have already consented to China’s request for a ceasefire. China is pursuing a negotiated resolution to the civil war that would almost certainly leave the military’s power largely intact. The opposition insists on military reform and its removal from politics. Yet, having achieved substantial territorial gains at the junta’s expense, the ethnic insurgents might be inclined to accept a deal with China’s endorsement rather than persist in fighting to depose the generals. The AA’s triumph raises additional troubling concerns. The group’s leadership remains reticent about its future plans. However, it assumes control of a state that has historically been impoverished and has endured immense suffering from the intense conflict of the past year. “Eighty per cent of the housing in Maungdaw and the surrounding villages has been destroyed,” one Rohingya man who left Maungdaw recently for Bangladesh told the BBC. “The town is deserted. Almost all the shops and houses have been looted.” Last month, the United Nations, whose agencies have very limited access to Rakhine, issued a warning of impending famine, owing to the vast number of displaced individuals and the difficulty of delivering supplies past a military blockade. The AA is attempting to establish its own administration, but the BBC has been informed by some of those displaced by the conflict that the group is unable to provide them with food or shelter. It also remains uncertain how the AA will treat the Rohingya population, still estimated to be around 600,000 in Rakhine, even after the expulsion of 700,000 in 2017. The largest concentration resides in northern Rakhine State, and Maungdaw has historically been a predominantly Rohingya town. Relations with the ethnic Rakhine majority, who form the AA’s support base, have long been strained. These relations have significantly worsened after Rohingya militant groups, whose power base is in the extensive refugee camps in Bangladesh, opted to align with the military against the AA, despite the army’s history of persecuting Rohingyas. Many Rohingyas disapprove of these groups, and some express contentment with living in an AA-administered Rakhine State. However, tens of thousands have been expelled by the AA from towns it has conquered and have not been permitted to return. The AA has committed to including all communities in its vision for a future independent of the central government, but it has also condemned the Rohingyas it encountered fighting alongside the army. In August, dozens of Rohingyas, many of them women and children attempting to cross into Bangladesh, were killed by bombs, almost certainly dropped from AA drones. “We cannot deny the fact that Rohingyas have been persecuted by Myanmar governments for many years, and the Rakhine people supported that,” said the Rohingya man we spoke to in Bangladesh. “The government wants to keep Rohingyas from becoming citizens, but the Rakhine people believe there should be no Rohingyas at all in Rakhine State. Our situation today is even more difficult than it was under the rule of the military junta.”