WHOEVER planned and staged Thursday night’s coordinated attacks on 30 police posts in Myanmar have done a great disservice to the Rohingya minority in that country who are fighting for their basic rights. At least 12 members of the security forces and 77 insurgents were killed in the attack that took place in Myanmar’s Rakhine state where most of approximately 1.1 million Muslim Rohingya live.

Those behind the attack can’t be unaware of the massive military counteroffensive that followed similar incidents in October 2016. Some 87,000 Rohingya had to flee to Bangladesh after the military operation. Security forces have begun a new “clearance operation” this month, worsening Rohingya’s conditions still further.

To be fair, the persecution of Rohingya did not start with last year’s attacks. Over the past decade, they have been repeatedly called “The Most Oppressed People in the World.”

In fact, this is an understatement.

A UN report in February described their situation as a possible “genocide” and a set of “crimes against humanity.”

Myanmar authorities categorize them as Bengali “interlopers” though they’ve lived there for generations. While speaking to the media about Thursday’s attack on police posts, a government spokesman was careful to avoid the term Rohingya. He described the attackers as “extremist Bengali insurgents.”

Unfortunately, the country’s de-facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for fighting for human rights when her country was under military rule is on the same page with the military and the Buddhist majority over the treatment of Rohingya. She asked the diplomats from several countries not to use the term Rohingya. Calling them Bengalis would, she thinks, perpetuate the myth they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

The treatment of Rohingya has emerged as Myanmar's most contentious human rights issue. Most of them were rendered stateless by the country’s 1982 Citizenship Law.

Since 2012 and 2013, a wave of attacks by their Buddhist neighbors in the northeastern state of Arakan/Rakhine has killed thousands and displaced hundreds of thousands from their homes — driving them into refugee camps abroad or shelters within the country.

Media are forbidden to travel to the region, but reports of atrocities by the military are leaking. They include rape, murder and burning villages.

The fact is most of those who could have already fled the country. Only those who can’t afford to pay border officials and people-traffickers to smuggle them across the border remain in Myanmar. Along with them are those who are not able to withstand the perils of the journey — children, elderly people and women.

The latest clashes come hours after a panel led by former UN chief Kofi Annan urged Myanmar to lift restrictions on movement and citizenship for Rohingya. But the worry is that Thursday’s developments will spark an even more aggressive army response and trigger clashes between Muslims and Buddhists.

Unfortunately, in the case of Rohingya, repression at home is matched by apathy abroad. Even though more and more Rohingya want to leave, neighboring countries are becoming less and less hospitable. Bangladesh has floated the idea of relocating tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees to a remote, flood-prone island off its coast. In India, where Rohingya are generally vilified, there has been a string protests against them.

Given the factors working against the Rohingya at home and abroad, those behind Thursday’s attacks, whether Rohingya or their supporters in other countries, are playing into the hands of Buddhist extremists looking for an opportunity to tar the Rohingya with the brush of terrorism.

Even before Thursday’s attack, Suu Kyi was justifying all excesses against the Rohingya, saying they are part of “counterterrorism” operations to apprehend the militants.

Rohingya and their friends should ponder whether they, by their reckless actions, should enable Myanmar authorities to justify their inhuman policies and repressive measures against a helpless minority in the name of a worldwide campaign against terrorism.