On Myanmar's frontline, Rohingya fighters and junta face a common enemy

Bangkok: Myanmar's military long viewed the insurgency among persecuted Rohingya Muslims as an existential threat to the majority Buddhist nation, but as the Arakan Army rebel group makes sweeping gains, the junta and some Rohingya fighters now face a common foe.

In a once-unthinkable arrangement, the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO) says its fighters have reached an "understanding" with the military not to attack each other, as they both battle the Arakan Army, the major rebel force in western Myanmar.

"The junta did not attack us, and we did not attack them," Ko Ko Linn, the head of RSO's political affairs, told Reuters in a rare interview.

"When they are not attacking us, why do we make two targets at the same time? This has become an understanding by nature."

There is no formal agreement between the RSO and the Myanmar military, said Ko Ko Linn, adding the two sides are not collaborating to fight the Arakan Army.

"Our boys are fighting with our own uniform and our own badges, and we use our own guns," he said.

Ko Ko Linn did not say how long the "understanding" has been in place, but cited the movement of RSO fighters into the town of Maungdaw on the Bangladesh border earlier this year, where the junta and RSO fought the Arakan Army.

Reuters could not independently verify Ko Ko Linn's account of the battlefield situation in Rakhine state, where Maungdaw is located.

The Myanmar junta did not respond to requests for comment via telephone and email.

Ko Ko Linn said the largely Buddhist Arakan Army spurned attempts by the RSO to forge a battlefield alliance against Myanmar's military and targeted the Rohingya community in northern Rakhine state, forcing his group to take up arms against it.

"They were buying time, avoiding to talk with us, avoiding sitting together," he said. "We also requested the Arakan Army not to hit the Rohingya. We warned them frequently, but they ignored us."

The Arakan Army, which has previously denied it has targeted the Rohingya, did not respond to questions on the RSO's comments.

There are deep-seated tensions between Rakhine's Buddhist community, which backs the Arakan Army, and the Rohingya. Some Rohingya have been forcibly conscripted by the military to fight the Arakan Army, which accuses sections of the Muslim minority, including the RSO, of collaborating with the junta.

Reuters reported that the Arakan Army in May set alight parts of Buthidaung, until then Myanmar's largest Rohingya settlement, after the town had also been scorched by arson attacks led by the military.

The RSO is just one of several Rohingya armed groups tussling for power in refugee camps in neighbouring Bangladesh, where over a million from the community live, and in Rakhine.

Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fled to Bangladesh after a brutal junta crackdown in 2017 that the U.N. described as an "textbook example of ethnic cleansing".

The military has insisted the 2017 operation was a legitimate counterterrorism campaign sparked by attacks by Muslim militants.

The fighting in Rakhine now is part of a wider rebellion against Myanmar's junta, three years after it ousted an elected civilian government in a coup, triggering nationwide protests that have morphed into an armed uprising.

Deadly attack

The RSO was formed in 1982 with the aim of establishing an autonomous region for the Rohingya, but it was long considered by analysts to be virtually defunct.

However, it has reorganised itself and expanded since 2022 from a base of around 1,000 cadres to between 5,000 and 6,000, although not all of them are armed, said Ko Ko Linn.

The RSO has been accused by rights groups of forcibly recruiting Rohingya from the refugee camps in Bangladesh, a charge that the group denies.

"Although many refugees dislike the Arakan Army due to its public statements and reported human rights violations, the RSO recruitment campaigns have generally been very unpopular in the camps," the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank, said in an August report.

Earlier this year the RSO sent around 1,000 fighters into Maungdaw to defend the Rohingya as the Arakan Army bore down on the area in an attempt to push out the military, Ko Ko Linn said, adding that is when the RSO and the military found themselves facing the same enemy.

However, after operating in and around Maungdaw for around three months, he said, the RSO pulled its fighters out in early August following a deadly attack on civilians.

Some 180 people, including many women and children, were killed in artillery shelling and drone attacks near the bank of the Naf River adjoining Maungdaw, according to a UN estimate of casualties from the assault.

The Arakan Army and Myanmar's military have blamed each other for the incident.

The RSO was not involved in the incident but withdrew from Maungdaw to avoid further civilian casualties, Ko Ko Linn said.

"We are changing our strategy," he said, declining to provide any details. "We will go again inside to fight."