International Crisis Group Asia Report N°348 18 June 2025 Bangladesh/Myanmar: The Dangers of a Rohingya Insurgency I. Introduction In November 2023, the Arakan Army launched a decisive offensive against the Myanmar military.1 The regime responded with artillery, air and naval support, but in the absence of a major ground counteroffensive was unable to stave off the assault. By early 2025, the Arakan Army had captured nearly the whole of Rakhine State, including the military’s Western Command at Ann, and established de facto rule over a population estimated at more than one million.2 Only three pockets of territory now remain in the regime’s hands. Since early 2025, these areas have also come under periodic attack.3 Unable to match the Arakan Army on the battlefield, the military has tried to hurt it in other ways. Naypyitaw has blocked essential goods from entering Rakhine State, restricted the delivery of humanitarian assistance and shut down electricity, communications and banking services.4 The military has also continued to wage a campaign of terror from the skies.5 Chinese attempts to broker an end to the fighting have so far made little progress, largely because the military regime is unwilling to recognise the Arakan Army’s territorial gains.6 The military’s determination to prevent the Arakan Army from building a viable proto-state has compelled the group to take the fight beyond Rakhine’s borders. 1 The Arakan Army formed in the borderlands of China in 2009 but began shifting its forces into Rakhine in early 2014. For reporting on the Arakan Army’s rise, see Crisis Group Asia Reports N°339, Breaking Away: The Battle for Myanmar’s Rakhine State, 27 August 2024; N°325, Avoiding a Return to War in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, 1 June 2022; and An Avoidable War: Politics and Armed Conflict in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, 9 June 2020. 2 Ann was the second regional command to fall to resistance forces; the first, in Shan State, fell in August 2024. “Rebel militia claims strategically important Myanmar military command centre at Lashio in Shan State”, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 7 August 2024. There are no accurate figures for Rakhine State’s current population. Around 750,000 Rohingya fled in 2016-2017, and up to 200,000 more have left over the past eighteen months. Hundreds of thousands of people – Rakhine, Rohingya and other minorities – have likely fled fighting between the Arakan Army and the military, particularly since November 2023. It is plausible that the state’s population is less than half of the 3.2 million counted or estimated during the 2014 census, with the majority now in areas controlled by the Arakan Army. 3 One of these is Kyaukphyu, which hosts important Chinese energy infrastructure, including an oil terminal and oil and natural gas pipelines. Beijing also has plans to build a deep-sea port and highspeed railway that would give it direct access to the Indian Ocean. Crisis Group Video, “Mapping Conflict: The Arakan Army’s War in Western Myanmar”, 28 February 2025. 4 Crisis Group Report, Breaking Away: The Battle for Myanmar’s Rakhine State, op. cit. 5 See, for example, “At least 40 killed in Myanmar military air attack in Rakhine State, UN says”, Al Jazeera, 11 January 2025. 6 Beijing has hosted several rounds of talks in Kunming between the Myanmar military and the Arakan Army, but these have not resulted in a ceasefire. Crisis Group interview, source close to the military regime, January 2025.