Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army

The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (အာရ်ကန်ရိုဟင်ဂျာ ကယ်တင်ရေးတပ်မတော်; abbreviated ARSA), also known by its former name Harakah al-Yaqin (meaning Faith Movement in English),  is a Rohingya insurgent group active in northern Rakhine State, Myanmar. According to a December 2016 report by the International Crisis Group, it is led by Ata Ullah, a Rohingya man who was born in Karachi, Pakistan, and grew up in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Other members of its leadership include a committee of Rohingya émigrés in Saudi Arabia.

Myanmar's Anti-Terrorism Central Committee declared ARSA a terrorist group on 25 August 2017 in accordance with the country's counter-terrorism law. The Burmese government has alleged that the group is involved with and subsidized by foreign Islamists, despite there being no firm evidence proving such allegations. ARSA released a statement on 28 August 2017, calling government allegations against it as "baseless" and claiming that its main purpose is to defend the rights of Rohingyas.

Prior to 2016
According to the International Crisis Group (ICG) and a spokesperson for ARSA, the group was formed in 2013, following the 2012 Rakhine State riots, under the name Harakah al-Yaqin (translated as Faith Movement in English). A former member of ARSA described how he was recruited by the group's leader, Ata Ullah, three years prior to the attacks in October 2016. Ata Ullah had approached villagers, asking for five to ten recruits to join his group and telling them that the time had come to "stop the mistreatment of the Rohingya people". Prior to the October 2016 attacks, ARSA had merely patrolled villages armed with bamboo sticks, making sure that villagers prayed at the mosque. According to Rohingya locals and Burmese security officials, the group had again began approaching Rohingya men from various villages for recruitment six months prior to its first attack in October 2016, this time with the intention of training them across the border in Bangladesh for a future attack in Myanmar.

2016 to 2017
In October 2016, under the name Harakah al-Yaqin, the group claimed responsibility for attacks on Burmese border posts along the Bangladesh-Myanmar border, which left 9 border officers and 4 soldiers dead. The Tatmadaw (Myanmar Armed Forces) announced on 15 November 2016 that a total of 69 insurgents had been killed by security forces in the recent fighting. The ICG reported on 14 December 2016 that in interviews, the leaders of ARSA claimed to have links to private individuals in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The ICG also reported that Rohingya villagers had been "secretly trained" by Afghan and Pakistani fighters.

Burmese state media reported on 22 June 2017 that three insurgents had been killed by security forces in a raid on an insurgent camp supposedly belonging to ARSA, as part of a two-day "area clearance operation" by the government. Authorities confiscated gunpowder, ski masks and wooden rifles used for training.

In July 2017, the Burmese government accused ARSA of murdering 34 to 44 civilians and kidnapping 22 others in reprisal attacks against those ARSA have perceived as government collaborators. ARSA denied the accusations.

On 25 August 2017, the group claimed responsibility for coordinated attacks on police posts and an attempted raid on an army base. The government announced a death toll of 77 Rohingya insurgents and 12 security forces in northern Maungdaw following the attacks. The government stated that they had attacked a police station in the Maungdaw District with a handmade bomb alongside the coordinated attacks on several police posts. ARSA claimed they were taking "defensive actions" in 25 different locations and accused government soldiers of raping and killing civilians. The group also claimed that Rathedaung had been under a blockade for more than two weeks, starving the Rohingya, and that the government forces were preparing to do the same in Maungdaw. Over 4,000 ethnic Rakhines fled their villages on 26 August 2017, as fighting between ARSA and the Tatmadaw escalated. ARSA was also blamed for the Kha Maung Seik massacre on the same day by the Myanmar Army.

In late August 2017, the Burmese government accused ARSA of killing 12 civilians, including Hindus and Muslims, some of whom were suspected by ARSA of being government informants. On 24 September 2017, Myanmar's military accused ARSA of killing 28 Hindus in Ye Baw Kya village in the previous month after they uncovered their bodies in a mass grave. ARSA released a statement on 28 August 2017, calling government allegations against it as "baseless" and stating that ARSA only seeks to defend Rohingyas and their rights. An ARSA spokesman also denied allegations that it was behind the killings and accused Buddhist nationalists of spreading lies to divide Hindus and Muslims. Bangladesh meanwhile has proposed joint military operations with Myanmar against ARSA.

A one-month unilateral ceasefire was declared by ARSA on 9 September 2017, in an attempt to allow aid groups and humanitarian workers safe access into northern Rakhine State. In a statement, the group urged the government to lay down their arms and agree to their ceasefire, which would have been in effect from 10 September until 9 October (the one-year anniversary of the first attacks on Burmese security forces by ARSA). The government rejected the ceasefire, saying that they do not "negotiate with terrorists". Zaw Htay, the spokesperson for the State Counsellor's office, stated, "We have no policy to negotiate with terrorists." ARSA responded on 7 October 2017 that they would respond to any peace initiatives proposed by Myanmar's government, but added that their one-month unilateral ceasefire was about to end. Despite the ceasefire ending on 9 October, the government stated that there were no signs of any new attacks.

On 9 November 2017, Myint Khyine, the Burmese secretary of the Immigration and Population Department, blamed the deaths of 18 village leaders in the last three months on ARSA in Muslim-majority Maungdaw and Buthidaung. The victims were village leaders who helped the Immigration and Population Department issue national verification cards to Rohingya residents.

Bangladesh's Minister of Road Transport and Bridges, Obaidul Quader, stated during a reception organised by the nation's deputy high commission in Kolkata that his country was investigating allegations that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) had established links with ARSA.

2018
ARSA claimed responsibility for an ambush carried out on 5 January 2018 in the village of Turaing, which reportedly injured six members of Myanmar's security forces and a civilian driver.

Ideology and structure
ARSA's leader, Ata Ullah, has stated that "Our primary objective under ARSA is to liberate our people from [the] dehumanising oppression perpetrated by all successive Burmese regimes". The group has consistently insisted that it is an ethno-nationalist insurgent group and have denied being a jihadist group. ARSA has also denied allegations that they are an Islamist group, stating that they "have no links to terrorist groups or foreign Islamists" and that their "only target is the oppressive Burmese regime". However, unlike other ethno-nationalist insurgent groups in Myanmar, ARSA follows many traditional Islamic practices such as having recruits swear an oath to the Quran, referring to their leader as an emir and asking for fatwas from foreign Muslim clerics.

In contrast to other insurgent groups in Myanmar, ARSA is not organised like a paramilitary. While other groups have military ranks and uniforms, most members of ARSA have appeared in videos wearing civilian clothes. The group is also ill-equipped; it was reported that during their attacks in Maungdaw District on 25 August, most of ARSA's fighters were armed with machetes and bamboo sticks. The local authorities responded with automatic machine gunfire, heavily outmatching ARSA's weapons. Analysts have compared the tactics used by ARSA to those used by insurgent groups fighting in southern Thailand, namely crossing the border from one country to another to launch small scale attacks, then retreating back across the border to a community that shares a similar ethnic and/or religious background.

Press statements
ARSA periodically releases press statements online, in documents and videos posted to its Twitter account. Unlike statements made by other insurgent groups in Myanmar, most of them are written in fluent English rather than in the group's native tongue (in this case, Rohingya).

On 17 October 2016, ARSA (then under the name Harakah al-Yaqin) released a press statement online. In a roughly five minute video, the group's leader, Ata Ullah, flanked by armed fighters reads from a sheet of paper:

"Citizens of Arakan [State], citizens of Myanmar, and citizens of the world.

It is no longer a secret that the Rohingyas are the most persecuted ethnic minority on earth. Throughout the last six decades, we have been subjected to genocidal mass-killings, and all kinds of atrocities at the hands of successive tyrannical Burmese regimes.

Yet the world has chosen to ignore us! Then again, the "resourceful" world has apparently failed to save us!

We [Harakah al-Yaqin], the sons of Arakan[ese] soil, who are compelled by our dire situation to follow our own destiny through uprising, self-determination and self-defence, stand as an independent body which is free from all elements of terror in any nature, seek fundamental but legitimate rights and other [forms of] justice for all Arakanese, including our fellow innocent Rohingyas and other civilians dying from the continuous military assaults.

We categorically state that our people have chosen to free themselves from their oppressors, from the tragic deaths in the Bay of Bengal, in the Thai jungles and at the hands of human traffickers. We have also resolved to defend our mothers, sisters, elderly, children and ourselves.

We shall not rest until all our desired goals are achieved with the genuine help of the civilised world."

Six other videos were released online by the group between 10 and 27 October 2016.

The group released a press statement on 29 March 2017 under a new name, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA). The document included demands made to the Burmese government and a warning that if they were not met, there would be further attacks.