Indeed, the efforts of the 969 movement and MaBaTha have actually
created a threat against Buddhism in Myanmar that did not previously
exist. US State Department officials recently confirmed in an
interview with one of the authors
that Al Qaeda and other violent
Islamist groups have used recent
attacks against Myanmar’s Muslims
to recruit Muslims to their
cause.44 A number of militant
Islamist groups in the region
have issued statements warning
of attacks on their home governments
and the Myanmar government in defense of the Rohingya and
Muslims generally (Agence France Presse 2012). Likely to that end, in
February 2014, two men on a motorcycle shot at Rakhine politicians
visiting Malaysia (Mahtani and Fernandez 2014).