Bangladesh Boosts Security on Myanmar Border After Deadly Attacks Along Frontier

Bangladesh officials said Monday it had beefed up security along its southern border following an outbreak of violence in neighboring Myanmar that left nine Burmese border guards and eight alleged attackers dead a day earlier.

Unknown assailants on Sunday attacked three border guard posts in the Maungdaw and Rathedaung townships, which lie in Myanmar’s troubled Rakhine state just across the border from Bangladesh, killing nine Burmese border guards, wounding five more and leaving one missing, according to Myanmar national police chief Zaw Win. Eight attackers were killed, and two were captured on Sunday, he said.

“Regarding the incidents, the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) force boosted security measures in the border areas to prevent the entry of terrorists,” BGB Director General Maj. Gen. Aziz Ahmed told BenarNews on Monday.

“We could hear the sound of firing from Bangladesh territory,” Lt. Col. Abu Jar Al Zahid, a Teknaf region unit commander of the BGB, a paramilitary force under the Bangladeshi Ministry of Home Affairs, told BenarNews. “Before the Myanmar border police informed us, we deployed our troops along the border so that the miscreants could not enter Bangladesh.”

Meanwhile, at least four Muslims died Monday when government army and police forces conducted house-to-house searches for weapons in the Maungdaw, Myanmar, following Sunday’s deadly attack, according to residents.

Monday’s deadly clashes occurred while police and soldiers were searching a Muslim quarter of the border town following Sunday’s bloody attack, residents told the Myanmar service of Radio Free Asia (RFA), a sister entity of BenarNews.

The bodies of the four who died on Monday were taken to a hospital in Maungdaw, they said.

RFA could not reach the town’s administrative offices to confirm the deaths.

“We have many soldiers in the town,” said Maung Maung Ohn, the former chief minister of Rakhine state who is a lawmaker in the state legislature and a resident of Maungdaw. “The Maungdaw market is closed, and all Muslim shops are closed. There are almost no people on the streets.”

In the violence targeting the border posts, the assailants seized 51 weapons and more than 10,000 rounds of ammunition in the initial attack, Zaw Win said Sunday during a press conference in Naypyidaw, the capital of Myanmar.

Full story: BenarNews