Student ‘warriors’ group claims responsibility for bombings

Burmese military intelligence officers have stepped up security in Rangoon and other cities following the reappearance of a shadowy rebel movement, the Vigorous Burmese Student Warriors, writes Edward Loxton for The First Post.

After keeping the authorities guessing about the identity of bombers who attacked an office of a hated junta-backed civic movement, the Union Solidarity and Development Association, on July 1, the so-called 'warriors' emailed a message claiming responsibility.

The warriors also took responsibility for a bomb attack in April when two explosive devices rocked central Rangoon, killing a woman and injuring several people. Nobody was hurt in the attack on the USDA office.

Before the warriors made their claim an executive member of Burma's main opposition party, the National League for Democracy, was arrested in connection with the July 1 blast. The NLD confirmed today that Khin Maung, 62, was arrested at his Rangoon home on the day of the bombing.

Little is known about the student warriors, who first hit the headlines in 1999, when several of the group's members raided the Burmese embassy in Bangkok and took 89 people hostage. The Thai government - sympathetic at that time to the Burmese opposition's democratic aims - negotiated the release of the hostages and flew the rebels in a helicopter to the Thai-Burmese border, where they slipped out of sight in Karen-controlled territory.

Since then, several small bomb blasts in various parts of Burma and even some attacks on government officials have been attributed to the warriors. One Rangoon source told me today: "I think the frustration and anger has reached such a pitch in Burma now that we can expect to hear more from the warriors."

FIRST POSTED JULY 4, 2008