Burma coup resistance notes December 23, 2023
China’s phantom ceasefire; junta forces being cleared out of N. Shan and abandoning bases in Kachin; Chin forces clear more enemy positions; missile attack in Mandalay; junta assault on Kampat fails.
Northern Shan State--------------------
Kokang forces took control of the border crossing gate at Yanglongkai on Dec. 18, the one that serves the border city of Laukkai. There was no fight, the junta troops there surrendered, by some accounts hundreds of them. They were disarmed, given cash handouts by the Kokang army (MNDAA), and released.(Myanmar Now 12/18) Kokang forces have besieged Laukkai, capital of the Kokang region, for the past three weeks, closing in on it progressively with the capture of junta positions. The city is completely encircled, the streets and buildings appear trashed from combat, Chinese military helicopters are patrolling the border. Junta airstrikes target civilian areas, collapsing a multi-story building in downtown Laukkai. (Khit Thit Media 12/21, 12/23)
The Ta’ang army finished clearing junta troops out of Namsam on Dec. 15, halfway between Mandalay and the China border. The Ta’ang captured 4 howitzer artillery guns and a vast stockpile of smaller weapons and a lot of ammunition. They found more than 60 dead junta troops and captured 30 alive; 64 police family members were also taken into custody. Both jets and helicopters have been retaliating with heavy bombing, killing civilians and destroying a school. On Dec. 20 the Ta’ang found and took prisoner the commander of the defeated junta battalion from the battle of Namsan. Namsan was the capital of a breakaway Ta’ang state during the 1950s. (People's Spring 12/17, Ayeyarwaddy Times 12/20) On the other hand 49 Ta’ang soldiers were killed and 145 were wounded in the Dec.11 battle of Namkam, a strategic but costly victory. As previously reported, over 70 junta troops were killed including reinforcements sent and a commanding officer. (The 74 Media 12/19)
On Dec. 23 the Ta’ang announced that they had cleared out the last junta presence in Manton Township of northern Shan State. (Khit Thit Media 12/23)
Kawthoolei-------------------
The Karen army together with Karenni forces seized a large and longstanding junta base on a ridge top at Ta Kaw Hta in Mutraw District on Dec. 16, finally clearing it out a day later. The base normally housed about 120 troops and was equipped with communications tower and satellite dish. The Karen found weapons and over 70 dead troops in the camp. The camp is in Kawthoolei a short distance from the Karenni and Thai borders. (Salween Press 12/18)
The junta is having to air-drop supplies to its remaining camps in Mutraw District which are cut off by the Karen army. This is difficult, however; on Dec. 11 half of the 12 loads dropped in Luthaw Township fell outside the junta camps into the hands of the Karen. (People's Spring 12/16) Most of the junta’s occupation camps in Mutraw have been captured by Karen defense forces.
After Karen-led forces liberated Moo town in Kler Lwi Htoo District on Dec. 4, they lost it again on Dec. 13. It is back under the control of the junta, which burned down the entire market district in the town on Dec. 20. (Myaelatt Athan 12/21)
Junta troops have been looting undefended villages in Launglone Township of Beit-Tavoy District. They drive the residents away and then pillage their homes and shops, selling the stolen items in larger towns. (Karen Information Center 12/18) PDFs in Launglone Township destroyed gate guard posts at a military base and killed 6 troops there on Dec. 20. Two PDF soldiers also died. (Khit Thit Media 12/22)
Karenni-------------------
The battle of Loikaw continues its steady progress. Junta forces are now confined to the northeast quadrant of the city around the airport. As desperately surrounded and cut-off junta garrisons express their impotence in the form of mortar shelling of civilian neighborhoods, jets drop bombs on the largely vacant wards of the town where residents have fled. A Karenni assault on the fortified prison Dec. 16-17 met with stiff resistance, complicated by avoiding harm to political prisoners inside. But the Karenni have the roads cut, so reinforcements cannot arrive. Even if they could, they would be old men, prisoners, and unwilling conscripts looking for chances to abscond.
Some commentators paternalistically apply the term “overreach” to the Karennis’ drive to control their own capital. These commentators are invariably foreign, their judgment clouded by their inability to consider the junta anything but invincible, as if 2023 were a repeat of 1988. And as if airstrikes could somehow substitute for dwindling troop numbers and quality. The Burmese-language press and Karenni commanders have an entirely different perspective. Control of Loikaw is still contested, but the Karenni share continues to grow, while the junta is struggling not to regain it, but to postpone being anihilated.
While that has been going in, Karenni forces in Pekone Township seized another junta camp after a day-long battle. This happened Dec. 11 but was only reported Dec. 19. The Karenni captured the camp’s weapons, then jets and helicopters did their habitual airstrikes as whenever the junta loses a battle. (Khit Thit Media 12/19)
Chin------------------
Chin defense forces attacked and overcame 2 junta camps on Dec. 18, at Bonzon between the state capital Hakha and the Magway Region border, and at Teibway in Paletwa Township, on Dec. 18. Bonzon housed 38 troops, Teibway about 30; at Bonzon 10 of them were killed, an officer and 5 others were captured, and the rest fled. The troops at Teibway fled the camp and are the subject of a search by Chin forces now. Two Chin soldiers were killed and 10 wounded. Chin forces captured weapons and are searching for the escapees. Bonzon was the last junta camp on the Hakha-Gangaw road. After the Teibway battle jets bombed a civilian village, killing 4 residents. (People's Spring 12/18 & 19)
Kachin------------------
The Kachin army captured another junta camp along the Mandalay-China border road on Dec. 20, this one at Namkaing between Theinni and the 105 Mile junction, both of which are already under Revolution control. (Kachin News Group 12/20) This further erodes the junta’s hopes of ever reopening the China border road under its control.
Meanwhile in Puta-O Township of far northern Kachin State, the junta abandoned 2 camps at Inkagah and Injanyan, needing to consolidate its troops against the expanding ethnic army campaign begun on October 27. (Kachin News Group 12/20)
The junta base that the Kachin army captured on Dec. 15 in Waingmaw Township was defended mostly by men over 40, including some elderly. The junta had equipped them with obsolete weapons. (The 74 Media 12/22)
Arakan------------------
After subduing two key junta command bases in Paletwa last week, the Arakan Army is now attacking at Yanbye and Kyaukphyu. (DVB E 12/19) Kyauk Phyu is the terminus of the Chinese oil and gas pipelines as well as the planned railway from Yunnan Province in southwestern China. Heavy fighting is ongoing in Pauktaw, Sittwe, and Rambye Townships. Arakan Army fire forced 3 junta warships to turn back after approaching Pauktaw on Dec. 21. (Khit Thit Media 12/22)
Mon-------------------
The various small, local ethnic Mon militias that arose to fight the 2021 attempted coup pledged to unite into the Mon State Revolutionary Army, under the Mon State Federal Council. The grouping does not include the old ‘New Mon State Party’ which has a ‘non-fighting’ armed wing, and which has been much closer to the illegal Naypyitaw regime than many especially younger Mon people would tolerate, meeting with the coup plotters at least 6 times. An official from the old NMSP made a public statement of encouragement for the young resistance groups fighting the junta, but it wasn’t clear whether it was only his personal view. Then the old NMSP chairman Naing Hanthah criticized the active Mon fighting groups, saying they are recent and temporary, though they have surpassed the old NMSP in relevance through their service.
People’s Defense Forces (PDFs)-----------------
The junta’s week-long attempt to retake Kampat town failed. About 200 troops and Pyu Saw Htee from Kalay had approached the Sagaing town on the Indian border, even taking 36 orphans as human shields, but the PDFs protecting the town repulsed them on Dec. 16, killing 30 of them and putting the rest to flight while capturing a number of their weapons including rifles, a machine gun, grenades and launcher, and ammunition. The orphans were rescued. (National Unity Government Ministry of Defense 12/16) Three wounded junta troops were captured including a senior officer. (People's Spring 12/17)
PDFs in Myaing Township of Magway Region attacked a junta camp on Dec. 15 that was a source of mortar fire at surrounding villages, killing 7 junta troops. Other troops then came from a nearby village that they occupied, blundering into roadside bombs and being bombed by PDF drones that forced them to turn back. Twenty more troops were killed on the way out and back. (Myaelatt Athan 12/17)
In Sagaing Township junta troops extorted money from motorists at a checkpoint, so PDFs used drones to drop 20 bombs on the police barracks where they were camped on Dec. 19, resulting in at least 7 dead troops being thrown into the Mu River by their colleagues. (Khit Thit Media 12/21)
Chin forces and PDFs in Gangaw Township of Magway Region captured a junta camp that guarded the Myitthah Dam on Dec. 22. Three of the junta troops were killed, but the rest fled. A jet then dropped 2 bombs. (Mizzima 12/22)
Public administration governance and clearing of junta landmines have begun in Mawlu town in Indaw Township, Sagaing Region. The town was liberated on Dec. 13. (Kachin News Group, National Unity Government Ministry of Defense 12/18)
A Bago Region PDF set up a checkpoint and asked motorists if they were transporting any products of junta crony companies. This happened only 12 kilometers south of Naypyitaw on Dec. 16-17. Junta troops were stationed a mere 8 kilometers away, but they didn’t leave their camp. The PDF says motorists were pleasantly surprised to see them there. (Myaelatt Athan 12/19)
Urban warfare-------------------
Bombing of junta targets in Yangon continues to increase as part of “Alpha Operation,” a revolutionary urban campaign to complement Operation 10/27 up north. On the 2 nights of Dec. 15-16 nineteen explosions occurred in 10 urban townships, killing one person and injuring 15. Police are digging trenches to harden their barracks against the attacks and putting up camouflage against drone bombing. (Mizzima 12/16) The junta is forcing electronics shops to record the personal information of customers buying Bluetooth devices such as speakers, since these are used in remotely-detonated bombs in Yangon. (Khit Thit Media 12/18)
In Mandalay three urban guerrilla groups collaborated to fire six 107mm shock missiles into the junta’s central military command HQ at the palace on Dec. 21. All six exploded, damaging the commander’s and deputy commander’s residences and the female soldiers’ dormitory and causing an unknown number of casualties. An important person is thought to have died, but no details are available. (Khit Thit Media 12/21, People's Spring 12/22) Such a large attack in such a central location shows that junta personnel have no safe refuge.
Junta decline------------------
Over 650 junta troops have formally surrendered in battle since the launch of Operation 10/27 eight weeks ago. (The Irrawaddy E 12/20) A possibly larger number have fled their camps without turning themselves over to Revolution authorities.
Ten junta police who were sent from Minhla Township in Bago Region to fight on the front line in Kawthoolei Taw Oo District on Oct. 15 fled their station. Nine escaped and one was caught. They said they didn’t want to die on the front line because they are police, not soldiers. (Khit Thit Media 12/20)
Five junta troops including a captain defected to the Karen army Brigade 6 in Dooplaya District on Dec. 17, with their weapons. (Mizzima 12/21)
Terrorism--------------------
There are more reports of chemical weapons use, this time in Htee Chaing in northern Sagaing Region, where PDF soldiers and local people were sickened by gas bombs that caused vomiting and dizziness on Dec. 15. (People's Spring 12/16) Liberation forces and the junta have been battling for control of Htee Chaing, which is close to Kachin and Shan States, for weeks after the start of Operation 10/27.
Junta troops on Dec. 15 burned Naypu Kone village in Butalin Township of Sagaing Region, and burned 4 villages in Depayin Township, two in Maddaya Township of Mandalay Region, and one in Myaing Township of Magway Region Dec. 17-20. The Myaing assault on civilians was in retaliation for a PDF attack that killed 7 junta troops. The junta has also been firing mortars into nearby villages from Butalin town, killing and wounding civilians, mostly women. (Mandalay Free Press 12/16, Khit Thit Media & Myaelatt Athan 12/17) PDFs attacked the troops burning villages in Maddaya on Dec. 20; casualties aren’t known but ambulances were required. (Myaelatt Athan 12/21)
The junta’s blockade of roads and rivers into Arakan State is now causing famine in junta-controlled areas. A coalition of Arakan civil society organizations issued an appeal to international organizations to intervene to avoid a humanitarian disaster. (Burma News International 12/18)
Junta troops caught 2 PDF soldiers in Kathah Township of northern Sagaing Region on Dec. 15, and 5 more PDF soldiers and one civilian on Dec. 20. The troops pulled out the fingernails of their captives, then cut off their fingers, then their hands, by way of torturing them to death. They flayed the flesh from the bones of a child. (Myaelatt Athan 12/20)
Political and economic-------------------
China keeps claiming that it negotiated a truce between the Brotherhood Alliance and the junta, which would be extremely beneficial to the junta. (Khit Thit Media 12/21) Fighting continued each day, however, involving all three of the alliance members and the junta, so the Chinese are not as influential as they seem to think. A coalition of several hundred Myanmar civil society and revolutionary groups sent a request to the Chinese government to stop taking actions that prolong the life of “fascism”. (People's Spring 12/18)
The UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance (UNOCHA) says there are now 2.6 million internal refugees due to the coup in Burma, and that 1/3 of the population needs humanitarian assistance, for which it requested US$1 billion in funding for 2024. (Khit Thit Media 12/18) The UN agencies collaborate with the illegal Naypyitaw junta, so their aid is not allowed to be distributed where the internal refugees mostly are, in liberated areas. On Dec. 19 the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) Asia and Pacific Regional Director Pio Smith flew to Naypyitaw to legitimize the rogue regime and pledge to put more resources within its control. (Myanmar Now 12/20)
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