The inevitable Jihad in Myanmar and its implications for South Asia and SE Asia

The Rohingya in Myanmar are often described as the most persecuted minority in the world.

Background

The Rohingya are an ethnic Muslim minority who practice Sunni Islam in Rakhine State in Myanmar. The Rohingya trace their origins in the region to the 15th century, when thousands of Muslims came to the former Arakan Kingdom. But the local people & the government of Myanmar says that the Rohingya are gradual migrant from Bangladesh. There are approximately 1 million Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, living predominantly in Rakhine State. While not technically part of the official population count,?Rohingyas constitute about 1.8% of Myanmar's total population. In spite of their longstanding relationship to Myanmar’s Rakhine State, they are not recognized by the government & have historically been denied citizenship. Without recognition as citizens or permanent residents of the country, the Rohingya have limited access to education, jobs & healthcare, resulting in chronic poverty & marginalization. They are the world’s largest stateless population.?

History

The word Rohingya was 1st used used as "Rooinga" (inhabitant of Arakan, today's Rakhine) in 1799 in the Journal Asiatic Researches. Later they were called "Muslim Arakanese". Myanmar is one of the most ethnically diversified societies of the world. 135 ethnic nationalities with numerous subgroups are officially recognized in the Burma Citizenship Law of 1982, but the ethnic Rohingya were not included. In the 1st constitution of Myanmar in 1947, all people living at that time in frontier areas & who intended to stay permanently were considered citizens & accepted as “The People of Burma." However, when General Ne Win came to power in 1962, the Rohingya were deemed as incompatible with other ethnic groups in Burma. However, other Muslims, who do not belong to the Rohingya, have obtained Myanmar nationality.?

Shortly after Myanmar declared independence in 1948, a rebellion broke out along the border of Myanmar & East Pakistan (Bangladesh), calling for equal rights for Muslims living in Rakhine State. After years of insurgency, the Myanmar government suppressed the violence & secured a cease-fire in 1954. However, Myanmar’s military coup in 1962 hardened the government’s stance toward religious & ethnic minorities, & the Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine State in particular were again repressed. In 1982, the Rohingya were stripped of their citizenship & categorized as “nonnationals.”?

The modern insurgency in Rakhine State dates to the 1970s when pan-Islamist movements around the world gave rise to the Rohingya Solidarity Organization; its splinter group, the Arakan Rohingya Islamic Front & eventually in 1998, a loose alliance of the 2 organizations called the Arakan Rohingya National Organization.

The origins of the insurgent group, Harakah al-Yaqin, also known as the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), date back to 2013, when Ata Ullah along with a committee of some 20 senior leaders, established the organization from Saudi Arabia. Since then, ARSA has obtained fatwas from clerics in countries with significant Rohingya diaspora to justify its use of violence against the Myanmar armed forces, & has carried out significant attacks on security forces, including multiple coordinated attacks on 9 Oct, 2016, which resulted in the deaths of 9 police officers in Rakhine State. The military responded with a month-long crackdown on unarmed Muslim civilians, causing more than 1,000 civilian casualties & driving tens of thousands more to flee their homes in search of safety.

Violence targeting the Rohingya have driven several mass-displacements, including events in 1978, 1991-92 & 2016. Many Rohingya have spent decades living in areas like Cox’s Bazar.?

The economic reasons for displacing the Rohingya

The plan of the Myanmar military junta to displace Rohingya from home is a long-term plan that was implemented chronologically from the independence of Myanmar from the British up to 2017. Myanmar’s dominant Buddhists & the government of Myanmar did not accept the Rohingya, so they institutionalized discrimination against the Rohingya ethnic group through unlawful restrictions on marriage, education, family planning & freedom of movement. Eliminating the Rohingya from the citizenship law in 1982 proves their long-term plan to cleanse the Rohingya.

The War on Terror presented Myanmar with the opportunity to build its anti-Rohingya narrative: the Tatmadaw was fighting Islamist terrorism, not pursuing an Islamophobic genocide. When sectarian riots?erupted in Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine State, in summer 2012, the Tatmadaw?imprisoned?tens of thousands of Rohingya in concentration camps for what it described as their own safety. According to the Myanmar government, the camps protected the Rohingya from Rakhine rioters while the Tatmadaw pursued the alleged terrorists of the Rohingya Solidarity Organization (RSO), a defunct resistance movement. The Tatmadaw was pressuring the Rohingya to leave through oppression rather than making them leave through violence.

In 2016 & 2017, the Tatmadaw found the opportunity to finish what it started in 1948. The existence of ARSA, the Rohingya’s reaction to decades of passive genocide, gave the Tatmadaw the excuse to switch to active genocide. It combated insurgents by?arresting, burning, displacing, executing, raping & torturing Rohingya civilians, whom it?described as “terrorists.” These war crimes fell under the label of counter terrorism which is popular with Western militaries. The Tatmadaw simply reproduced what it saw at work in the Western world.

Nothing from 1948 suggests that the Tatmadaw is reviving the War on Terror with sincerity. Instead, the military has used the War on Terror as cover for the War against Islam. The Tatmadaw has gone further than its counterparts in the Philippines & Thailand, the other 2 countries in SE Asia confronting Islamist insurgencies.?The Filipinos & Thais have at least spoken of conflict resolution & peacebuilding. The Tatmadaw, on the other,?refuses?to negotiate with ARSA. The Tatmadaw wants to destroy an ethnicity, not end an insurgency.

There is more to the conflict than just religious & ethnic tensions. Key factors for the persecution of Rohingya are political & economic interests. The Rakhine state plays a strategically important role for Myanmar neighbors.

China's One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative aims to connect the west of China & the Bay of Bengal with pipelines & a highway. Oil & gas transports from the Middle East & the oil & gas reserves in Myanmar are necessary?for China's energy security. The OBOR project will bring substantial economical advantages such as bypassing security concerns & the bottleneck in the Straits of Malacca. One pipeline began in the Bay of Bengal in the Rakhine state. After local protests, Rohingya coastal communities were vacated in 2012 to clear the way for the Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone (KP SEZ). With this new special economic zone, OBOR & the deep-sea port Kyaukphyu, China's influence in Myanmar & the entire region will increase. Therefore, Rakhine State is one of the most important strategic centers for China & paves access to the Indian Ocean.

India has built the Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project at a cost of USD$484 million to connect the eastern Indian seaport of?Kolkata with Sittwe seaport in?Rakhine State, by sea. In Myanmar, it will link Sittwe seaport to Paletwa in Chin State via the?Kaladan river?boat route & then from Paletwa by road to?Mizoram State in Northeast India.

Numerous companies from Europe & Asia have invested in onshore projects & are involved in exploration. Different countries are also interested in the mining of uranium deposits.

For the US, unrest & pressure from the outside could delay or break off the negotiations with China & lead to a return to the West. The conflict gets even more complexity due to rumors about insurgent connections to international drug trafficking. In Myanmar, the military have been grabbing huge pieces of land since the 1990s. Because of military-economic interests, the Rohingya have been expelled from their land.

In the Rohingya area, more than 1.3 million hectares of land has been allocated for corporate rural development & since the country has opened up to foreign investors in 2012. The Rakhine State is one of the poorest regions in the country, although it is rich in natural resources. The Myanmar elite sees the Rohingya as an economic burden & as competition for the few existing jobs as well as for opportunities to do business.

It can be concluded that the military junta in Myanmar had a long-term plan to forcefully displace hundreds of thousands of Rohingya from the Rakhine State. The military junta executed their plan with the silent but active support of 2 superpowers: China & India, & was obvious to Bangladesh.

The latest & largest crisis

Following the Aug 2017 intensified military crackdown in Myanmar which made international headlines, some 700,000 Rohingya people fled from their homes & took refuge in countries including Bangladesh, Malaysia, India, Thailand & elsewhere. According to Médecins Sans Frontières, some 6,700 Rohingya, including around 730 children under the age of 5, were killed in Aug 2017 after the violence broke out. Other reports claimed that since 25 Aug, 2017, nearly 24,000 Rohingya Muslims have been killed by Myanmar’s state forces. This escalation in violence that began in Aug 2017 is the starting point for the latest & largest crisis.?

As of July 2022, the?World Health Organization estimated that?over 925,000 Rohingya are living in Kutupalong & Nayapara refugee camps?in Cox’s Bazar. The Rohingya have also sought refuge in other countries in order to escape violence. Over 100,000 have fled to Thailand & over 50,000 are in India. Smaller groups have made their way to other countries in the area, including Indonesia & Nepal. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimated that an additional 1.1 million Rohingya are?internally displaced?within Myanmar, some several times over.?These refugees now live in uncertainty, their disrupted lives scattered across refugee camps where they struggle for basic facilities & proper education for their children. Without passports or travel documents, only a minority among these stateless people have UNHCR registered cards which holds little sway.

Tensions with the Buddhist majority in Myanmar

Buddhists make up the religious majority of Myanmar, accounting for 87.9% of the total population. However, in Rakhine State, however, the religious & ethnic lines are drawn much more tightly. The?2014 Myanmar Population & Housing Census reported that 52.2% of Rakhine State are Buddhist & 42.7% Islamic, making religious tensions in Rakhine State much higher than in the rest of the country.

Buddhist?nationalist groups including the MaBaTha & the anti-Muslim 969 movement, regularly call for boycotts of Muslim shops, the expulsion of Muslims from Myanmar & attacks on Muslim communities. A sermon by Sitagu Sayadaw, one of Myanmar’s most revered monks & a leading doctrinal authority, is particularly alarming. Preaching to military officers at a garrison & training college in Kayin State on 30 Oct 2017, he urged unity between the military & monkhood, then appeared to provide a religious justification for the mass killing of non-Buddhists. He recounted a well-known 5th century legend from Sri Lanka commonly used in Myanmar to justify violence in defence of the faith, telling the soldiers that no matter how much they had to fight, they should remember that non-Buddhists killed were “not fully human”. The sermon & local media reporting of it have been widely shared on social media, with many Myanmar people expressing support, though some have voiced unease or opposition.

Tensions between Buddhist & Muslim communities in Rakhine State escalated dramatically in Aug 2017 when the ARSA launched a series of?attacks?on military & police outposts which killed more than 70 people, including 12 security forces personnel. The government declared ARSA a terrorist organization & the military mounted a brutal campaign that destroyed hundreds of Rohingya villages & forced?nearly 700,000 Rohingya to leave Myanmar.

Trevor Wilson, a former Australian ambassador to Myanmar wrote in an online post for the Asian Studies Association, that ARSA has many of the attributes of Islamist terrorist groups elsewhere - ARSA has declared links with IS, used crude anti-authoritarian propaganda & showed a willingness to introduce arms into what was previously an 'unarmed political struggle'. The opportunistic nature of their public profile & blatant use of ordinary Rohingya to cover for their own extremism were shared attributes.

International critics say Yangon’s response has been too heavy-handed, with the UNHCR calling the state’s treatment of the Rohingya a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing.” Myanmar’s security forces have also allegedly?opened fire?on fleeing civilians & planted land mines near border crossings used by Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh. Reuters also reported accusations that the Myanmar military had planted new mines along its already heavily mined border with Bangladesh. Bangladesh protested the mining along the border & demanded that Myanmar’s army de-escalate the ongoing violence that has forced tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees from Rakhine State across the border into the Bangladeshi resort town of Cox's Bazaar.

The worsening tensions between Rohingya Muslims & Buddhists in Rakhine have sparked a wave of anti-Buddhist sentiments across SE Asia.

In addition to Islamic State (IS) & Al-Qaeda (AQ), most South & SE Asian extremist groups have already been linked to the latest Rohingya crisis in some way. The longer violence against the Rohingya continue, the greater the risks become of such links deepening & potentially becoming operational. Pro-Islamist groups as well as sympathizers from Indonesia & Malaysia have shared videos & photographs of the alleged atrocities by Myanmar’s security forces against the Rohingya in social media as well as mobile communication platforms.

The postings include calls for recruitment for ‘jihad’ in Myanmar. Exhortations to mount an offensive against Myanmar have been evident in videos uploaded by several Islamist groups. A video released on 3 Sept 2017 titled “Anak Pengungsi Rohingya Siap Balik ke Myanmar Untuk Berjihad – dari Aceh” (Children of Rohingya in Aceh Ready to Return to Myanmar for Jihad) showed a group of uniformed personnel from Aceh undergoing physical training without weapons in preparation for their self-proclaimed jihad in Myanmar.

Another video, “Persiapan Para Mujahid Indonesia Menuju Myanmar Selamatkan Muslim Rohingya” (Indonesian Mujahid in Preparation to Save the Rohingya in Myanmar) introduced a battalion dressed in standardized attire making battle cries of jihad while getting ready for a journey to Myanmar.

A third video, “Laskar FPI Berangkat ke Myanmar” (Soldiers of FPI Departing to Myanmar) demonstrated an attempt by Indonesia’s right-wing Islamist organization, Front Pembela Islam’s (FPI) to involve itself in the crisis. The FPI opened registration for 1,200 mujahideen volunteers to join in the humanitarian jihad in Myanmar.

The Rohingya who remained in Rakhine State?face systematic abuses that amount to the crimes against humanity of apartheid, persecution & deprivation of liberty. They are confined to camps & villages without freedom of movement, cut off from access to adequate food, healthcare, education & livelihoods. The state of Rakhine, where the violence is concentrated, is becoming a breeding ground for radicalization. Living in an environment of systemic discrimination, Rohingya Muslims are prime targets for religious radicalization.

International jihadist groups are a far bigger security threat to Myanmar.

Muslim marginalization in?Myanmar?has attracted the interest of transnational terror groups including IS, Tehreek-e-Taliban & Laskar-e-Taiba, sparking fears that the country will become fertile ground for such terror groups. As the situation worsens, the plight of the Rohingya will be exploited by?terror groups & networks across SE Asia & beyond. With seriously marginalized Muslim youth making up 45% of the Rohingya population, there is ample opportunity for radicalization. These boys & young men, stateless & targeted by government forces, could well reach for the chance to become heroes.

Myanmar has justified what it calls clearance operations by arguing the nation faces a terrorist threat. This could be a self-fulfilling prophecy. The plight of the Rohingya has captured the attention of the Muslim world, becoming a?cause célèbre?like perhaps no other since Kosovo.

AQ, IS & other jihadist groups have long issued statements of solidarity with the Rohingya for propaganda purposes but are now calling directly for attacks on Myanmar & its leaders.

On 12 Sept 2017, the AQ leadership released a statement calling “upon all Mujahid brothers in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan & the Philippines to set out for Myanmar to help their Muslim brothers, & to make the necessary preparations - training & the like - to resist this oppression against their Muslim brothers & to secure their rights, which will only be returned to them by use of force.”

On 27 Oct 2017, the media arm of AQ in the Indian subcontinent (AQIS) released a video message from the group’s leader, Abu Syed al-Ansari, repeating calls for a jihad against Myanmar in support of the Rohingya. Myanmar is not prepared to prevent or deal with such an attack, which could be directed or merely inspired by these jihadist groups. Any attack, particularly on a religious target in a major city, would shred the fraught relations between Buddhists & Muslims across Myanmar, potentially sparking widespread communal violence. There are Muslim communities in most cities & many rural areas in Myanmar.

In Sept 2017, analysts at the Center for Strategic & International Studies said that the repression visited upon the Rohingya by a government largely consisting of leaders from another religion present a potential, transnational flash-point for jihadi-Salafi organizations. With parallels to the ethno-religio-nationalist insurgencies of southern Thailand & the Philippines, there is legitimate concern that the violence will attract outside forces. The analysts pointed out that foreign fighters have previously flocked to SE Asia’s domestic struggles. In May 2017,?a battle between the terrorist Abu Sayyaf Group & the Philippine Armed Forces attracted more than 80 foreign fighters from Chechnya, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Indonesia & Malaysia. IS-affiliated soldiers are seeking new missions after Syria & Iraq, therefore opportunities to defend fellow Muslims in Myanmar are inevitably very appealing.

The call for jihad in Myanmar will serve to reinforce or legitimize terrorist groups operating in terror-prone regions in Indonesia as well as Philippines. The conditions in Rakhine are ripe for the influence of extremist stimuli, including the infiltration of IS ideology which may worsen the situation in Myanmar. Incidentally, Rakhine has already been declared by IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as a region where jihad is to be conducted, from as early as 2014 when the Islamic caliphate was 1st declared.

In 2017, researchers at Singapore-based Nanyang Technological University said in a report, “The conditions in Rakhine are ripe for the influence of extremist stimuli, including the infiltration of IS ideology, which may worsen the situation in Myanmar,” It is an ideal situation for IS & its affiliates to collaborate with regional groups.

In 2021, the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) published a?detailed report?on the Rohingya insurgency in Myanmar. It said ARSA is run by a committee of Rohingya immigrants living in Saudi Arabia & “is commanded on the ground by Rohingya with international training & experience in modern guerrilla war tactics.”

Violent extremism stems from a?variety of factors which create infinite individual combinations. However, it is possible to identify several factors that are usually found in processes of political radicalization. Looking at the refugees in Bangladesh, almost every factor identified by radicalization experts can be found. This is largely due to the harsh treatment of the Rohingyas before 2016, but much more so as a result of their brutal expulsion from Myanmar?described?by the UN as ethnic cleansing & probably genocide.

The refugees, a large proportion of them women & children, currently seem preoccupied with their daily survival. There are no obvious signs that they are about to embark on an international campaign of violence. However, it would only take a very small percentage of them to be radicalized for there to be a major security problem.

There is also a risk that radicalized Rohingyas will be recruited by international terrorist groups. Muslim communities in South & SE Asia have been outraged by the treatment accorded to their fellow Muslims in Myanmar, making them vulnerable to Islamist recruiters.

Myanmar’s campaign against ARSA & its treatment of its Rohingya Muslims in general, have generated notable discontent in the Islamic world. Leaders from Muslim majority countries, particularly those in SE & South Asia, have spoken out against the conditions that have led to the wave of Rohingya displacement. Leaders from Malaysia, Indonesia, Bangladesh & Pakistan have denounced the actions of the Myanmar government. Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdo?an & its foreign minister have described the situation as a genocide aimed at Muslim communities in the region. The dire situation in Myanmar & Bangladesh has attracted the attention of various extremist groups which prompted Najib Razak, Malaysian Prime Minister in 2018 to warn of a serious security threat to the entire region. Also in 2018, while in Singapore, Aung San Suu Kyi pointedly warned that?the terrorism that sparked the Rohingya crisis could spread beyond Myanmar.?

The Islamic State in Bangladesh

The Bangladeshi government has maintained a curious position of denying the presence of IS in Bangladesh, in contrast to several claims made by the terrorist network itself. After the Holey Artisan Bakery attack in July 2016, several policymakers began to deny the presence of IS in the country. Instead of IS, government officials coined a new name for the group, ‘Neo-JMB’, & claimed that it was merely & a new faction of Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), a violent extremist organisation in Bangladesh. In contrast to the Bangladesh regime’s official position, the individuals involved in these attacks, such as the assailants of Holey Artisan Bakery Attack, admitted that they were IS members. The confessions of the returnees & arrested jihadists further indicates the obvious connections between IS & Bangladeshi recruiters. IS's flagship magazine Dabiq also affirmed their presence in Bangladesh & published several stories on their involvement in jihadist attacks in Bangladesh.

External Forces

It has long been suspected that external forces have been trying to fish in these troubled waters & spread extremist sentiment. According to a?Times of India?report in Jan 2020, Indian agencies issued a fresh warning to the country's armed forces & border guards that Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is involved in providing training to 40 Rohingyas in Cox's Bazar via JMB. It was also reported that ISI provided JMB with the 1st installment of 10 million taka (USD$117,000), funneled through Saudi Arabia & Malaysia for the training.

ARSA's destabilizing influence in Myanmar has attracted attention from intelligence agencies. A report on a news site run by exiled Burmese journalists, Mizzima, reported that IS & Pakistan were behind the Rohingya attacks on Myanmar security forces. The Rohingya leader behind the attacks, Hafiz Tohar, had spoken at length with extremists in Pakistan & Iraq in the 2 days before the attacks on Myanmar security posts. Indian & Bangladesh intelligence officials say that they have intercepted 3 long-duration calls between Hafiz & Pakistani officials. According to an unnamed Bangladeshi intelligence officer, the attacks on military forces in Myanmar were to cause trouble for Aung San Suu Kyi's Government & bolster the Rohingya insurgency in Rakhine state.

Tohar is believed to have trained with the Pakistani Taliban, & is widely blamed for similar attacks in Myanmar in Oct 2016.

Katibah al-Mahdi

In Nov 2020, Myanmar’s 1st explicitly Salafi-Jihadist militant group, Katibah al-Mahdi fi Bilad al-Arakan, declared jihad against Naypyidaw to avenge the persecution of Rohingya Muslims by Myanmar’s military junta. Now, SE Asia’s poorest nation grapples with a multidimensional humanitarian catastrophe in the aftermath of the 1 Feb 2021 coup d’état where the military declared the results of the Nov 2020 general election invalid & implemented a 1-year state of emergency. Myanmar’s spiraling violence & the presence of over a million Rohingya refugees in squalid conditions in neighboring Bangladesh has created a fertile ground for radicalization, raising the prospect of a new jihadist front at the crossroads of South & SE Asia.

Escalating violence has led investment to dry up as the?economy has gone into freefall, with the banking system on life support & the state failing to fulfill core functions as civil servants defect to join pro-democracy protests, plunging over half of Myanmar’s 55 million citizens into poverty with no respite in sight. Combined with the immense pressure placed on dilapidated & overstretched infrastructure by mass internal displacement.

Against this backdrop, Katibah al-Mahdi finds itself in a highly favorable position. Given the Tatmadaw’s preoccupation with?crushing urban dissent?in the aftermath of the coup, what limited state presence existed has atrophied across vast swathes of Myanmar’s mountainous borderlands, including Rakhine, rendering such areas?de facto?ungoverned spaces which offer a potential safe haven for jihadists to plan, train & coordinate their activities.

The extreme levels of?discrimination?against Rohingyas in Myanmar & the the?maltreatment of refugees?densely packed into overcrowded camps, such as Cox’s Bazaar in Bangladesh, makes pockets of displaced Rohingyas?highly vulnerable?to radicalization.

Given the presence of Islamist groups eager to exploit the Rohingya crisis in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Thailand & Indonesia, the largest recipients of Muslim refugees from Myanmar, it would be unsurprising if the Rohingya diaspora became a powerful force?fueling?the ambitions of Katibah al-Mahdi or similar groups promising salvation for Rohingyas remaining in the country & vengeance for the abuses perpetrated by the Tatmadaw.

The presence of ARSA & other pre-existing pro-Rohingya militant groups operating within Rakhine serves to provide a reservoir of hardened fighters embedded within the local population, if these fighters could give up their secular goals & embrace Katibah al-Mahdi’s Salafi-Jihadist agenda. A more likely option would be a hybridization of secular & jihadist goals, with Katibah al-Mahdi synthesizing Salafi-Jihadism with Rohingya separatism & sacrificing ideological purity to build grassroots support in Rakhine by embedding themselves within the local context, similar to the successful?model?adopted by AQ affiliates across the Sahel, Syria, Somalia & Yemen.

Rakhine’s other characteristics make the region a highly amenable location for an incipient jihadist insurgency to take root, with a convoluted coastline of islands, inlets & mangrove swamps & the mountainous Bangladesh-Myanmar border creating a?porous border?allowing any aspiring militants to wage a potent cross-border insurgency.

Katibah al-Mahdi has sought to?brand?Rakhine as the ‘land of hijrah’, encouraging Islamists from across the globe to migrate to Myanmar to wage jihad. Rakhine’s unique location astride mountainous & maritime smuggling routes across porous frontiers will?enable?foreign fighters to infiltrate the region undetected, allowing a jihadist insurgency to metastasize undetected & strike with little prior warning, as exemplified by the surprise attack & capture of Marawi in the Philippines by IS-linked insurgents in 2017.

SE Asia’s Next Frontline of Jihad

For years, ASEAN’s response to the Rohingya problem has been mute & passive, constrained by its non-intervention principle. Even framing the problem for a regional approach is a challenge due to Myanmar’s rejection of the term ‘‘Rohingya’’. As a compromise, ASEAN recast the Rohingya issue as “irregular migration”, a move that was meant to soothe political sensitivities but ignored the nub of the problem.

It is increasingly untenable for ASEAN to insulate itself from this issue behind the shield of non-interference. As the region becomes more connected & integrated, how can ASEAN reconcile this non-interference approach with the imperative for collective responsibility & regional response to address common trans-boundary challenges?

Pro-Rohingya sentiments inflamed extremist elements in Indonesia & Malaysia. In 2016, Indonesia thwarted a number of suspected attacks in Nov & Dec, including a planned bomb attack on the Myanmar Embassy in Jakarta. This arrest underscores the danger that the insurgency might raise misguided hopes among other Indonesian & Malaysian extremists that they at last had a new partner for jihad operations. It also encourage efforts to reach out to its leaders or actual attacks in the belief that these would aid the Rohingya cause.

The persecution of the Rohingya has set the stage for one of the worst refugee crises in the region with tens of thousands of migrants fleeing Myanmar & Bangladesh on rickety boats to reach Indonesia, Malaysia & Thailand. More than 200,000 Rohingya remain in Malaysia & around 2,000 are left in Indonesia. The influx of these migrants have created physical-financial burdens as well as social strains & security concerns to these neighboring ASEAN countries.

The above spillover effects have tipped Malaysia & Indonesia’s simmering discontent with Myanmar into more open criticism. In 2018, Malaysia Prime Minister Najib Razak, in a stunning departure from ASEAN's quiet diplomacy, publicly condemned the Myanmar government & questioned Ms Aung San Suu Kyi’s leadership credentials. Calling Najib’s move as interference in Myanmar’s internal affairs to shore up his domestic political standing, Myanmar has stopped its workers from taking up employment in Malaysia. As the 2 countries are caught in a diplomatic row, ASEAN unity is inevitably put under duress.

All the other ASEAN member states deserve scrutiny too for failing to speak up, or act, on behalf of the Rohingya & other groups in vulnerable situations. With Myanmar still unwilling to take meaningful steps to address the root causes of this crisis, the issue has become a regional shame.?For many people who call this region home, ASEAN is increasingly viewed as a rich man's club, one that pursues lucrative business opportunities at the expense of the human rights & fundamental freedoms of its people.?

Given the high profile of the Rohingyas’ plight in contemporary jihadist discourse, Rakhine is a magnet for foreign fighters from across the region seeking to establish a new front in SE Asia. The indefinite hosting of Rohingya refugees in overcrowded Bangladeshi camps such as Cox’s Bazaar & Bhasan Char provides fertile breeding grounds for radical ideologies to take root, with Hizb-ut-Tahrir & Jamaat ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh concentrating their recruitment efforts amongst the displaced Rohingya diaspora.

The extent to which Rohingyas have responded to these calls is uncertain. However, there are indications that Rohingyas will pose a threat not only to the peace & security of Bangladesh but also to SE Asia as a whole.

Considering the wider context, the re-establishment of the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate in Afghanistan has provided?impetus?to the global jihadist movement, potentially providing a useful base from which Katibah al-Mahdi or other Rohingya jihadist groups can train, plan & coordinate an insurgency in Myanmar from afar. IS, AQ & other rival groups tend to?compete for dominance?in various theatres of jihad, creating a distinct possibility that Katibah al-Mahdi gaining a foothold in Rakhine & precipitate a ‘snowball’ effect which leads to the rapid influx of militant groups into Myanmar.

Should Katibah al-Mahdi successfully manage to exploit state failure at the crossroads of India, China & SE Asia, the ramifications for the trajectory of local, regional & transnational jihadist groups would be undeniably profound.

In Sept 2017, Greg Fealy, an Associate Professor of Indonesian politics at the Australian National University & an Australian security expert warned that calls by AQ & IS to mobilize resources in Myanmar, while not surprising, could lead to a flow of high-powered weaponry to militant Rohingyas.

There is an active presence of?ARSA in the Rohingya refugee camps as they are involved in various operations & is highly detrimental to the overall situation. This has led to incidents where ARSA members being killed by security forces. For years after the 2017 exodus into Cox’s Bazar, Bangladeshi government officials denied that ARSA had a foothold or presence in the sprawling camps. But that changed with the killing of Muhib Ullah, peace activist, community leader & founder of the Arakan Rohingya Society for Peace & Human Rights (ARSPH), by a group of gunmen & other attacks which followed.?After the Bangladeshi government confirmation of ARSA’s presence in the camps, thousands of Rohingya leaders & volunteers have joined police on nightly patrols.

There have also been arrests of members belonging to a new Islamist militant organization,?Jama'atul Ansar Fil Hindal Sharqiya which is affiliated with AQ, in the camps. This indicate that not only are online provocations taking place, but also physical contacts are being established.

Rohingya refugees stuck at camps in southeastern Bangladesh say they feel increasingly unsafe as ARSA rebels & armed criminal gangs are targeting community leaders for attack. Mohammed Jubair, who is among those leaders, says ARSA has threatened him for his work as head of the Arakan Rohingya Society for Peace & Human Rights (ARSPH) - a group advocating for the repatriation of the refugees to their home villages & townships in Rakhine state, which lies across the border from Cox’s Bazar district.

There are also increasing concerns about the vulnerability of Rohingyas being exploited for criminal activities, including smuggling, drug trafficking, murder & other crimes. There has been a growing trend of Rohingya refugees engaging in the small-arms trade. Law enforcement agencies in Cox’s Bazar have arrested several Rohingya arms traders since 2017. However, the illegal arms trade in Cox’s Bazar & the adjacent region of Chittagong predates the arrival of Rohingya refugees & persists beyond the confines of the refugee camps. Cox’s Bazar has become a strategic route for arms smugglers to reach?buyers in India & Nepal, as it offers a more direct route compared to navigating through the challenging mountainous terrain of northern Myanmar. This easy access to weapons raises concerns about the fostering Rohingya militancy in the region.

The situation in the Rohingya camps is complex & multi-faceted, with various factors contributing to the potential threat that Rohingyas may pose to the peace & security of Bangladesh & South Asia. The presence of militant organizations, the involvement of extremist groups, the vulnerability to criminal exploitation, the small-arms trade, & the geopolitical tensions in the region are all factors that need to be addressed comprehensively to mitigate the potential security risks associated with the Rohingya crisis.

The new militancy among the Rohingya could be a serious headache for Malaysian authorities, given the size of the Rohingya community living there. If Rohingya living in Malaysia are recruited into an insurgency based on the Bangladesh side of the border with Myanmar, it could become a diplomatic headache. But if a more militant Rohingya group emerges, with ties to some of the Bangladeshi extremists in a repeat of the Rohingya Solidarity Organization- Harakat ul-Jihad-I-Islami/Bangladesh (RSO-HUJI-B) collaboration in 1999, the involvement of Malaysia-based Rohingya could produce more Rohingya with combat training & military skills & the extension of violence beyond Myanmar.

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Endro Sunarso is an expert in Security Management, Physical Security & Counter Terrorism. He is regularly consulted on matters pertaining to transportation security, off-shore security, critical infrastructure protection, security & threat assessments, & blast mitigation.

Besides being a Certified Protection Professional (CPP?), a Certified Identity & Access Manager (CIAM?), a Project Management Professional (PMP?) & a Certified Scrum Master (CSM?), Endro is also a Fellow of the Security Institute (FSyl) & the Institute of Strategic Risk Management (F.ISRM).

Endro has spent about 2 decades in Corporate Security (executive protection, crisis management, critical infrastructure protection, governance, business continuity, loss mitigation, due diligence, counter corporate espionage, etc). He also has more than a decade of experience in Security & Blast Consultancy work, initially in the Gulf Region & later in South East Asia.