The terrorist threat facing Southeast Asia is growing as foreign fighters return to the region, Southeast Asian defence ministers said in a joint statement on Tuesday in which they pledged to improve cooperation to tackle militancy.
Egyptian militant group Hasm claimed responsibility on Sunday for a small explosion at Burma’s embassy in Cairo, saying it was in retaliation for that country’s military crackdown on Rohingya Muslims.
“The government of Myanmar shall be made to taste what our Muslim brothers have tasted,” said the group.
Arakan Lead Story News Rohingya
Indian PM Modi spoke after talks with Burma’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi during a visit aimed at expanding commercial ties.
Arakan Lead Story News Rohingya
“We will take responsibility for security, as well as social and economic issues,” he told ethnic Mro villagers in Kaing Gyi.
Arakan Lead Story News Rohingya
Twenty parties issue statement saying that the government’s failure to address recent terrorist attacks was “the equivalent of committing an act of terror”.
“Insurgents have opened their own so-called IDP camps, where they use the local people as human shields,” said Min Aung Hlaing.
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Manipuri locals accuse Burmese soldiers of intruding onto Indian territory and terrorising local villagers.
Arakan Lead Story News Rohingya
According to a statement from the State Counsellor’s Office, the trainees say they were instructed in martial arts, basic military training, and terrorism tactics.
One of the Burmese student army’s northern branch leaders was arrested on 30 December for allegedly liaising with the outlawed Kachin Independence Organisation.
Arakan Lead Story News Rohingya
Brussels-based ICG said it has interviewed four members of the Harakah al-Yakin militant group in Arakan State and two outside Burma.
Burmese troops says they uncovered documents in Mongko suggesting that at least two fighters had recently crossed the Chinese border.
The former UN chief said both issues had been discussed with Aung San Suu Kyi and Commander-in-Chief Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing.
Arakan Lead Story News Rohingya
A military operation in northwestern Burma has killed more people than official reports have acknowledged, according to rights groups monitoring the situation.
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Thai security officers have nabbed three Burmese nationals in Mae Sot for alleged links to human trafficking and last year’s deadly bomb blast in Bangkok.
Campaigners are calling for a review of the convictions of 20 Muslims found guilty of terrorism last year under the recently repealed Emergency Provisions Act.
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“At first, we [neighbours] could smell it. Then it became unbearable, and people started running around. The fumes lingered for about 20-25 minutes, burning our eyes, and causing breathing difficulties.”
Police remain on high-alert to the possible presence in Burma of terror networks such as the Islamic State, believed to be active elsewhere in Asia.
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Thai news reports say that the Burmese migrant workers were held after a series of raids in the Thai border town of Mae Sai.
The security risk in Burma remains unaltered due to domestic and international dangers, say police in Naypyidaw.
According to a defence lawyer, no evidence was submitted in court that linked any of the accused to the charges of involvement with explosives or affiliation with an armed group.
A group of 20 Muslims on trial for undermining state security in Taunggyi are being constantly threatened and harassed by Buddhist monks and local Swan Arr Shin members, says their lawyer.
Hsenwi local MP Sai Win Khine said “four Bengalis” were detained when police stopped a bus travelling from Lashio to the border town of Muse.
The Burmese government plans to set up a national counter-terrorism body in the near future to protect the country from extremist groups, according to a senior police official.
Thein Sein’s warning came following a statement by Al-Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri, broadcast on 3 September, which called on the terror network to expand its jihad to India, Bangladesh and Burma.
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The Burmese Muslim Association vehemently condemns a statement by Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri in which he announced an intention to launch an active cell in the Indian subcontinent and Burma.
An amended Ant-Terror Bill passed through Burma’s lower house Monday. The Bill focuses on blocking terrorist funding in Burma but includes clauses on nuclear materials and facilities.
Burma’s Parliament has prioritised passage of two bills — the Anti-Money Laundering Bill and the Anti-Terrorism Bill – in the lead-up to a meeting of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), according to Parliament speaker Thura Shwe Mann.
An Indonesian court has sentenced an Islamist militant to seven and a half years in prison for masterminding a plot to attack the Burmese Embassy in the Indonesian capital.
Anti-terrorism squad kills six suspected militants and arrests another during an extended standoff at a house near the Indonesian capital which comes as an investigation continues into an alleged plot to bomb the Burmese embassy.
