Rohingya Muslim insurgents ambushed a military vehicle in Myanmar's Rakhine state, wounding five members of the security forces, state media and officials said, as the rebels claimed responsibility for the rare attack.

A wave of raids by the insurgents on security force posts on August 25 last year sparked sweeping army counter-insurgency operations in the Muslim-majority north of the state which led to widespread violence and arson and an exodus of some 650,000 Rohingya villagers to neighbouring Bangladesh.

The United Nations has condemned the Myanmar military campaign as ethnic cleansing — a claim that Buddhist-majority Myanmar rejects.

Since August 25, insurgents from the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (Arsa), who claimed responsibility for the co-ordinated raids on 30 security posts, have mounted only a few sporadic attacks.