“If the GZ youths are given the title Taliban GZ, the NUG and CRPH that are commanding them must be identified as ISIS,” the user continued, before claiming that both the Taliban and ISIS had eventually failed. “Extremist terrorist groups NUG and CRPH, like the terrorist Taliban GZ and ISIS, will soon end,” it said. The National Unity Government is a parallel government formed by the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, a group of MPs-elect from the November 2020 election, the results of which the military has refused to recognise. The junta has declared the NUG, CRPH and their armed wing, the People’s Defence Force, as terrorist organisations. Screenshot of a May 22, 2021 post on a pro-military Facebook group comparing the NUG and Generation Z fighters to ISIS. An unlikely connection During a recent meeting of the junta’s Anti-Terrorism Central Committee, officials apparently sought to draw a connection between the pro-democracy groups and the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army. In 2017, ARSA launched attacks on police stations in northern Rakhine State, prompting a brutal “clearance operation” by the Myanmar military that killed thousands of Rohingya and sent over 700,000 fleeing across the border to Bangladesh. Although the United Nations and rights groups described the violence as ethnic cleansing or genocide, the NLD government sided with the military, justifying and defending its actions. A state media report on the meeting said officials also “discussed the legal actions to take against the terrorist groups CRPH, NUG, PDF and their partners for communicating with international terrorists and ARSA to grab the State power by force”. There is no evidence of cooperation between ARSA and the pro-democracy movement. The NUG’s defence minister, U Yee Mon, rejected the terrorist label in a Facebook post on June 15. It is “fair to take up arms against the military council which forcibly took power from the people’s government and is committing all kinds of war crimes against ethnic people,” he said, adding, “The people will decide who the terrorists are.” He did not respond to requests for comment from Frontier. Meanwhile, the frequency and intensity of anti-Muslim posts has also been increasing in military circles. On May 2, a pro-military Facebook outlet called BAK21News posted a three-minute video clip attacking prominent Muslim protest leader Ko Wai Moe Naing, who was struck by a vehicle and arrested in Monywa on April 15 after leading regular demonstrations in Sagaing Region. Wai Moe Naing has been the subject of conspiracy theories spread by the junta and its supporters, who claim without evidence that he killed police officers and raped a woman. “Wai Moe Naing brutally killed two policemen in front of his people because he is a Muslim. He has been supported by the OIC since he was a student,” the video claimed, referring to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which has been the subject of many unfounded conspiracy theories in Myanmar, usually related to the Rohingya. The video accused Wai Moe Naing of working with U Ko