YANGON (AFP): A Myanmar rebel group said on Friday its members beheaded two prisoners in a rare admission of deadly violence as it fights the ruling junta to maintain control of the country's western borderlands.
The incident, which "violated military discipline", occurred in February last year during an Arakan Army (AA) offensive on Kyauktaw township in Rakhine state, according to the militant group's spokesman Khaing Thu Kha.
"Our local (AA) militias were unable to control their anger and committed crimes... in retaliation for the terrorist Myanmar army soldiers who had unjustly arrested, tortured, and killed their families," he told AFP.
In a two-minute clip that circulated on social media, around seven men -- some wearing AA uniforms and holding firearms -- kicked and beat two shirtless men on the ground.
In another video, the same alleged killers were seen beheading the captives with machete-like knives.
Khaing Thu Kha admitted on Friday that the videos were authentic and the perpetrators were members of the AA ethnic armed group.
Rakhine state in Myanmar's west is riven with ethnic and religious divisions.
It came under the global spotlight after a bloody 2017 army crackdown that forced some 740,000 Rohingya Muslims over the border into Bangladesh.
The military junta took control of the country in a 2021 coup against the democratically elected Aung San Suu Kyi's civilian government.
The AA says it is fighting for more autonomy for the ethnic Rakhine people, a population that is also accused of aiding the military in their expulsion of the Rohingya.
The militant group claimed complete control of a key region along the Bangladesh border in December, piling further pressure on the junta battling opponents elsewhere across the country.
The human rights organisation Fortify Rights has called on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate war crimes committed by the AA in connection with the beheadings, in a report published Thursday.
Khaing Thu Kha said the AA had identified and punished all those involved in the incident and added the group did not accept unlawful killings. - AFP
