Insurgents used karate, wooden guns to train terror cells in Myanmar

Unknown six months ago, the group has ignited a conflict in Rakhine State that has marred Myanmar’s transition towards democracy and confronted leader Aung San Suu Kyi with her biggest crisis yet. Communal tensions have long-festered in northwestern Rakhine State, where 1.1 million Rohingya Muslims live in apartheid-like conditions, often despised by the Buddhist majority. 

Villagers describe how a small group of leaders, including one born to Rohingya parents in Pakistan, recruited several hundred young men, training them clandestinely for months in fields and forests. 

On Oct. 9, Harakah al-Yaqin — Arabic for “Faith Movement” launched three coordinated attacks on separate police border posts, killing nine officers. A senior member of HaY, Mohammed Noor, was last month sentenced to death for leading one of the three attacks, the first such verdict to be handed down. 

Police Captain Yan Naing Latt, the lead interrogator of suspects at the jail in state capital Sittwe, said the group’s goal was to seize control of the northern part of Rakhine to create a “Muslim democratic state” for the Rohingya. 

“There were six cells in total,” said Yan Naing Latt, but only three were able to successfully launch attacks. “Leaders like Mohammed Noor were sent with some weapons to each village, recruited and trained locals there.” “They trained in karate and practiced firing guns,” said Yan Naing Latt.