Maung Zarni, Burmese dissident in exile, addresses the issue of ARSA as more civilian self-defense units than organized militias & certainly not Saudi-backed Wahhabi jihadis as the most reactionary political forces in the world claim:

“The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army’s attacks against Burmese border guard posts in Oct 2016 & Aug 2017 more closely resemble the Nazi victims’ uprising at Auschwitz in Oct 1944 than a properly organised & armed “insurgency.” In October 1944, the Jewish inmates killed four SS officers in one barrack at a concentration camp & the SS responded by killing about 500 Jewish & Polish prisoners. Similar large scale terror campaigns were launched by the Burmese military in 1978 & 1991-92, expelling upwards of 260,000 people in each wave.”