attacks, but a group calling itself Harakah al-Yaqin ("Faith Movement") later claimed responsibility. Following the attacks in October, the Myanmar Army began "clearance operations"—widely seen as a military crackdown on the Rohingya—in the villages of northern Rakhine State. In the initial operation, dozens of people were killed and many were arrested. The military enforced a curfew and blocked food aid from the World Food Programme to 80,000 people in Rakhine State. As the crackdown continued, the casualties increased. Arbitrary arrest, extrajudicial killings, gang rapes and looting were reportedly carried out by the military. Hundreds of Rohingya people had been killed by December 2016, and many had fled Myanmar as refugees to take shelter in the nearby areas of Bangladesh. The chief of police in Rakhine State, Colonel Sein Lwin, announced on 2 November that his force had begun recruiting non-Rohingya locals for a new branch of "regional police", which would be trained in Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine State, and then sent back to their villages. The stated purpose of these forces was to defend villages against Rohingya insurgents; however, human rights organisations criticised the move, saying the new branch would likely to be used to further the persecution of Rohingya civilians. New clashes began on 13 November, resulting in the deaths of one policeman, one soldier and six insurgents. Burmese police later arrested 36 suspected insurgents in connection to the attacks. Fighting continued and on the third day of the fighting, the death toll rose to 134 (102 insurgents and 32 security forces). The government later announced that 234 people suspected of being linked to the attackers had been arrested. Some of those arrested were later sentenced to death for their suspected involvement in the attack. 2017 Clashes between insurgents and the military continued in 2017. Burmese state media reported on 22 June that three insurgents had been killed by security forces during a two-day raid on an insurgent camp supposedly belonging to Harakah al-Yaqin, now calling themselves the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA). Authorities confiscated gunpowder, ski masks and wooden rifles suspected to have been used for training. In February, the United Nations accused Myanmar's military of mass killings and gang rapes, as well as burning down villages over the course of their "clearance operations". It stated that the military's operations had "likely caused hundreds of deaths." Two senior UN officials working in its two separate agencies in