Rohingya Activist denied and condemned this report and news
Baseless and meaningless, just blaming on poor rohingyas (#MirSdq)
The Irrawaddy
9 June 2017
RANGOON — Pro-ISIS
groups in Southeast Asia are trying to recruit Rohingya migrants in
Malaysia—who have fled persecution in Arakan State—to join Islamic militants
fighting Philippine security forces, according to a recent report from a
Jakarta-based research firm.
The Institution for
Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC), which focuses on conflicts in Indonesia and
the Philippines, stated the recent attacks in the southern Philippines city of
Marawi indicates growing radical movements fueled by ISIS and population
movements across the region.
In its report titled
“How Southeast Asia and Bangladeshi Extremism Intersect,” published in May,
IPAC states that developments in Syria, Bangladesh, and Burma, put the
relationship of South and Southeast Asian extremists “on a much more dangerous
footing.”
Syria has been in
civil war since 2011. In Arakan, there has been a long-running denial of rights
to the Muslim Rohingya, topped with an army crackdown in late 2016 that killed
and displaced thousands.
“The persecution of
Muslims in Burma adds to the potential for radicalization in diaspora
communities and to the perception in extremist circles in Southeast Asia that
Rohingya are ripe for recruitment,” read the report.
IPAC director Sidney
Jones said, “It’s possible that ISIS could find support within a fringe of the
diaspora Rohingya community, but the angry young Rohingya inside Myanmar are
far more likely to join an ethno-nationalist insurgency than a movement linked
to the global jihad.”
Some 70,000 people
have fled Arakan State to Bangladesh since Burma’s military began a security
operation last October in response to an attack on border posts in which nine
police officers were killed.
A group calling
itself Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), previously named the Faith
Movement, or Harakah al-Yaqin, claimed the attack, according to a report
released in December by the International Crisis Group, but the group has
denied links with any international terrorist group.
The IPAC report, however,
said ARSA leaders have turned to some South Asian extremist groups for help
with training.
A UN body agreed in
March to send a fact-finding mission to Burma over claims of killings, rape,
and torture by security forces against Rohingya Muslims in the troubled state.
There are an
estimated 1 million Muslims in the region who self-identify as Rohingya and who
are today largely stateless. Many in the Buddhist Arakanese community and
Burma’s government describe the Rohingya as “Bengali,” implying that they are
migrants from Bangladesh.
As of early 2017,
UNHCR had registered some 800 Rohingya in Indonesia and nearly 56,500 in
Malaysia, many of whom have lived there for decades.
It also stated that
Indonesians, Malaysians and other sympathizers are seeking to assist the Rohingya
in Burma through contacts with Bangladesh-based Rohingya groups.
“By and large,
Myanmar has more to worry about from a Rohingya armed rebellion in the name of
achieving basic political rights than from ISIS, and in a way that’s good news
because it means there’s a real prospect for a political solution, if only the
authorities in Yangon had the guts to act,” said Jones.
“There are other
entry points to ISIS: one or two youths from the Rohingya boat people who ended
up in radical Islamic schools in Indonesia or a few among the Rohingya
community in Malaysia attracted by online appeals from Syria and Mindanao,” she
added.
Some Bangladeshi
students from middle-class families studying at Malaysian universities develop
pro-ISIS sympathies, stated the report, either at home or while in Malaysia.
Some use Kuala Lumpur as the take-off point for travel to Syria, and some meet
each other as ISIS fighters in Syria or Iraq.
“The existence of an
armed group on the border mounting attacks on Myanmar security forces could
inspire pro-ISIS groups in Bangladesh, Indonesia and Malaysia to do more
systematic recruiting among their respective Rohingya communities and
individuals willing to carry out attacks on their own,” read the report.
Extremism is
becoming increasingly “intertwined, making the traditional distinction between
South and Southeast Asia obsolete,” in terms of counter-terrorism, according to
the report.
Historically, the
Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO), which operated out of southeastern
Bangladesh, reportedly had ties with Southeast Asian extremists in the late
1980s and 1990s, but is now thought to be defunct.