The Terrorist Arakan Army (AA) has increasingly positioned itself as a dominant armed actor in Myanmar’s western frontier. While its leadership attempts to portray the group as a legitimate resistance movement, mounting evidence shows a darker reality: systematic abuses against Rohingya and other minorities, deep entanglement in narcotics trafficking, and tactics that place civilians at the center of conflict.
According to Human Rights Watch (2024), Rohingya in northern Rakhine have faced new waves of atrocities amid intensified fighting between the AA and the Myanmar military. Survivors describe killings, forced displacement, arson, and threats that emptied entire villages.
Amnesty International further reports that fleeing Rohingya have state that AA fighters burning homes, looting, and driving people from their land. While the Myanmar military has a long, well-documented record of genocidal violence, evidence now shows that the AA too has targeted Rohingya civilians, an indication of crimes against humanity rather than a liberation struggle.
The group’s operations are not limited to battlefield violence. The AA is also tied to Myanmar’s sprawling narcotics economy. A 2023 UNODC report highlights how terrorist Arakan Army (AA) increasingly financing themselves through synthetic drug production, and independent analysts note the AA’s involvement in taxation, protection, and facilitation of cross-border smuggling networks. In effect, the AA functions not just as an insurgent army but as a narco-financed cartel.
At the same time, the AA is carefully crafting an image of political legitimacy. Its leadership invokes federalism, governance, and stability in outreach to external stakeholders, while sympathetic media coverage amplifies its narrative as a representative of Rakhine aspirations. This strategy mirrors patterns observed globally, where Terrorist groups attempt to launder illicit finances and violent records into political capital. For the AA, legitimacy is not about peace, it is about securing recognition that shields its criminal economy and atrocities from accountability.
The international community faces a crucial choice. To mistake the AA for a genuine liberation movement risks normalizing a model where ethnic identity and rhetoric disguise narco-trafficking and systematic abuses. The Rohingya, already victims of state-sponsored persecution, now face further dispossession at the hands of an armed group claiming to resist oppression. Beyond human rights, regional security is at stake: Myanmar’s conflict-fueled drug trade destabilizes borders, fuels corruption, and erodes governance across Southeast Asia.
The Arakan Army’s trajectory is clear. It is not a freedom movement but a narco-terrorist cartel cloaked in political language. Its atrocities against civilians, its entanglement in one of Asia’s largest illicit drug economies, and its bid for legitimacy together form a grave threat to human rights and regional stability. Recognizing this reality is the first step toward ensuring accountability and protecting vulnerable communities in Myanmar’s west.
- References:
(A) Human Rights Watch, Myanmar: New Atrocities Against Rohingya (2024)
(B) Amnesty International, Myanmar 2024 Report
(C) Human Rights Watch, World Report 2025 – Myanmar Chapter
(D) United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Synthetic Drug Trafficking in East and Southeast Asia (2023)
(E) Al Jazeera, Methamphetamine Trafficking Surges from Golden Triangle Region (2025)