Burma coup resistance notes January 6, 2024
Laukkai falls to the Kokang; the Kachin shoot down a copter; TNLA & Mandalay PDF get another step closer to Mandalay; Arakan Army sweeping the junta from Paletwa; junta air terror.
Northern Shan-------------------
Laukkai city, capital of the Kokang region, has finally fallen. At the last holdout junta position, the command HQ, 2,123 soldiers surrendered to the Kokang on Jan. 4, including 6 brigadier generals and other officers. A day later 300 more troops surrendered at another camp. The Kokang are now in control of the entire region. All of the bases’ weapons were surrendered as well. The defeated junta troops and over a thousand of their dependents requested safe passage to Lashio, capital of northern Shan State. A day later the town of Hopan also fell to the Kokang, who then handed control to the United Wa State Army because Hopan is within the Wa self-administered area. The National Unity Government’s Minister of Defense, U Yi Mon, called on the remaining elements of the illegal military regime to end their futile resistance. (Ayeyarwaddy Times, Than Lwin Khet News 1/4)
On Jan. 3 a junta shell sailed well past the China border into the Yunnan Province town of Nansan, injuring 5 Chinese civilians. Khit Thit Media news estimates that the shell went too far to be merely an overshot aimed at Laukkai 5 miles away on the Kokang side of the border, and that it must have been a deliberate junta attempt to provoke China. China’s foreign ministry was provoked, making threatening statements in response.
The Ta’ang army (TNLA) and Mandalay PDF are now within 25 km of Pyin Oo Lwin, where the junta’s officer training academy is located, and 90 km from Mandalay. The TNLA attacked and captured a key junta camp at Thanbo village in Naungcho Township on Jan. 3 after a 2-day battle. Thanbo normally had about 200 troops. The preliminary report says there were many casualties, mostly on the junta side, and the Ta’ang captured weapons. The junta sent 3 vehicles of reinforcements which were intercepted with more casualties. Seized weapons and uniforms suggest about 20 junta casualties including several officers, and a commander was captured. (NUG MOD, Mizzima 1/4)
The Ta’ang army liberated Maing Ngawnt town, just north of Kyaukme, on Dec. 31 after a 2-day battle. The junta retreated from the town and jets began saturation-bombing it, destroying schools, the fire station, administrative offices, neighborhoods, and the market. The population fled. Casualty figures are still unknown. (Khit Thit Media 1/1) The Ta’ang overran another junta base in Momeik Township on Jan. 5. (People's Spring 1/5)
The junta has been demolishing bridges leading from liberated towns toward the regional capital Lashio, where its northeast command HQ is located. (Mizzima 1/1)
The Kokang administration announced on Jan. 2 that it will re-establish the Kokang semi-autonomous region, previously known as Shan State Special Region 1, which was destroyed by the Burma army in 2015 in an offensive led by current dictator Min Aung Hlaing. (Khit Thit Media 1/2)
The Kokang army is using ten captured tanks and armored vehicles against the junta. Mechanics have restored them to working order and they have been sent to the front lines. (Chindwin News Agency 1/2)
Kachin------------------
The Kachin army shot down another junta helicopter using a shoulder-fired FN-6 missile on Jan. 3 in the sky above Laiza, the free Kachin capital. It is thought to have been on a supply mission. A video shows the stricken copter plunging to earth in a trail of smoke. (People's Spring 1/3) Six junta soldiers died in the crash while the pilot survived with injuries and was arrested by the Kachin army. (Khit Thit Media 1/3) The Kachin last shot down a helicopter in May 2021. The junta is resupplying and reinforcing its remote camps by air now because Revolution forces control the roads.
Junta supply helicopter shot down by the Kachin army Jan. 3. (Kachin News Group 1/3)
The Kachin army seized a junta camp at Nampatkah in Kutkai Township on Dec. 29. This is another town on the road from Mandalay to the China border. (Mekong News 12/30) Kachin-led forces went on to take over a junta camp at Manpat in Momeik Township, also in northern Shan State, on Jan 1. (Khit Thit Media 1/1)
Arakan-------------------
About 151 defeated junta troops from two captured camps Paletwa Township fled across the border to Mizoram State in India on Dec. 29, where the Indian army once again helped them return to the junta via a flight to Mandalay. (Khit Thit Media 12/30)
The Arakan Army captured two other large camps in Paletwa Township on Jan. 2 and 3, at Kamaungwa and at Chinletwa near the borders of both Bangladesh and India. Large amounts of weapons were seized. The AA says the junta now has very few positions remaining in Paletwa and the AA will soon clear them out. In Minbya and Kyauktaw Townships of Arakan State junta troops are shelling civilian areas, especially targeting the market districts for maximum lethality. Some civilians have been killed and injured. (Khit Thit Media 1/3, 1/4)
Kawthoolei------------------
Karen-led forces mounted a surprise attack that cleared 8 junta posts and a bridge guard along the old Yangon-Naypyitaw highway near Kanyutkwin town in Kler Lwi Htoo District on Jan. 4. The operation took one hour; a bridge was destroyed to block junta traffic between Yangon and Naypyitaw. At least 20 junta troops were killed in the coordinated attacks. (Khit Thit Media, Salween Press 1/4) This is only 20 miles from Natthankwin where Karen-led forces encircled junta forces last week. The junta has been dropping supplies to its troops in Natthankwin by helicopter. (KNU 1/4)
The junta abandoned 2 camps in Htaw Ta Htoo Township (Htantapin) in Taw Oo District of northern Kawthoolei on Dec. 31 and Jan. 2. These camps had been surrounded and starved out for 3 months by the Karen army until the troops decided to leave, abandoning a cache of grenades and rockets. The Karen then destroyed the camps. (KNU 1/3)
Karen army Brigade 1 has besieged the junta’s Wintapan camp in Bilin Township since Dec. 13, and the junta has launched airstrikes. The junta troops raised a white flag of surrender, then fired on Karen troops that approached their hill. (This increases the chances that the junta troops will have to be killed rather than being allowed to surrender.) (Than Lwin Times 1/3) On Jan. 3 the junta tried to air-drop supplies to the besieged camp by helicopter, but 9 of the 12 loads fell outside the camp, and the Karen forces so far retrieved 2 of them. Seven Karen soldiers have been wounded; junta casualties aren’t known. (Salween Press 1/4)
People’s Defense Forces (PDFs)-----------------
A coalition of more than 20 Mandalay Region PDFs destroyed a former village that had been converted to a Pyu Saw Htee terrorist camp in Myinchan Township, on Dec. 30. Most of the Pyu Saw Htees fled, though 12 were killed in the attack. The PDFs leveled the camp except for the monastery. No weapons were found. (People's Spring 1/2) The PDFs pursued the fleeing Pyu Saw Htees and junta troops to two other camps including the police barracks in the main town where they attacked with mortars and drones, killing 5 troops. (Khit Thit Media 1/2)
On Jan. 2 PDFs fired on two trucks carrying 60 junta troops in Sinpaungwe Township of Magway Region, killing 15 troops. (Khit Thit Media 1/3) Singpaungwe has not previously seen much fighting, but it is adjacent to the junta’s military capital region Naypyitaw.
A junta convoy of two large civilian trucks and a metal-plated military truck was destroyed by PDFs on the Monywa-Chaung Oo road on Jan. 1. The trucks were disabled using roadside bombs and drones; four of the troops were killed and 12 wounded, and the rest fled. (Mizzima 1/2)
PDFs in Sinku Township of Mandalay Region destroyed a junta supply boat on the Irrawaddy River on Jan. 4. The boat burned after being hit with a rocket-propelled grenade, and the junta troops aboard fled. (People's Spring 1/4)
A PDF with an engineering unit in Myaung Township of Sagaing Region is producing AK-47-style military rifles and using them in battle. The Royal Brother Defense Force does precision metalworking, and has reverse-engineered the familiar model for local production. (Myaelatt Athan 1/3) This is not the first instance of locally-produced military rifles, and potentially helps relieve a supply bottleneck for the Spring Revolution. The remaining obstacle is the familiar one, cost – the RBDF rifle costs about US$700 to make, which is still cheaper than AK-47s on the black market.
Urban warfare------------------
The police stations in South Dagon and North Okalappa Townships of Yangon were bombed the night of Jan. 2 by an urban guerrilla group. (People's Spring 1/3) Six simultaneous explosions in Hlaingthaya Township of Yangon targeted junta police barracks and administrators’ residences the evening of Dec. 31. (Khit Thit Media 12/31) A bomb exploded on Dec. 30 in Tamwe Township of Yangon at a nightclub frequented by the adult children of senior junta officers, where illicit drugs are sold and used. The Maze Club’s owners are junta cronies. The junta’s curfew doesn’t apply to this nightclub.
In Mandalay 2 grenades exploded at a junta police station during a visit from an army commander on Jan. 1.
Junta decline------------------
The entire garrison at a junta police barracks at Meza in Indaw Township, Sagaing Region fled their station on Dec. 30, fearing the advance of Kachin-led forces that liberated nearby Mawlu town on Dec. 13. PDFs then destroyed the station to prevent re-occupation. (Myaelatt Athan 1/1)
Eighteen senior junta officers of the rank of brigadier general, colonel, lieutenant colonel, and major were killed during December and 3 were captured alive. (Khit Thit Media 1/2)
Terrorism--------------------
Junta general Tah Bon Kyaw threatened that liberated communities will never be peaceful because the regime will constantly bomb them from the air, using “strange weapons that we have,” he claimed during a Dec. 23 meeting organized by China, made public by the Ta’ang army on Jan. 1. (People's Spring 1/1) It is confirmation of a policy already observed of destroying whatever the junta cannot control.
In another report of chemical weapon use, chemical bombs dropped by junta jets near Laukkai in Kokang Region on Dec. 26 killed two children and sickened 10 adults, with symptoms of vomiting, difficulty breathing, delirium, and bleeding from orifices. (Khit Thit Media 1/1)
A junta battalion in Wuntho Township of Sagaing Region is firing artillery shells at the liberated town of Kawlin, which the junta tried and failed to recapture in December. Shells hit the market place on Jan. 2 and killed 5 women and a man there. (Kachin News Group 1/2)
A gang of 60 junta troops marauded in Launglone Township near Tavoy, looting and burning homes and dragging civilians away to use as human shields. They cut off the head of a tuberculosis patient. (Than Lwin Times 12/31)
Junta troops invaded a stone quarry in Maddaya Township of Mandalay Region on Dec. 31 and killed 6 workers with no explanation, then stole the bodies. (Khit Thit Media 12/31)
The junta ordered Yangon residents to fly its flag in front of their homes for Independence Day Jan. 4. The flags had to be bought from junta administrators, generating cash for the terrorist regime, and homes without flags were threatened with large fines. (People's Spring 12/29)
The United Nations says over 6 million children in Burma are malnourished as a result of the 2021 attempted coup, with worse expected in 2024. (Khit Thit Media 1/3)
Political and economic-------------------
Youth leaders from all over Burma met for 3 days Dec. 27-29, at the end of which they issued a letter to Revolutionary political leaders with 11 recommendations. Broadly, they demand the inclusion of youth in decision-making about the future federal union, avoidance of any one group dominating the process, and strong alliances between the different Revolutionary groups. (People's Spring 1/3) There has been some concern that the old ethnic majority Bamar-dominated NLD party would again try to monopolize power after the Revolution, which some ethnic fighting groups have strongly opposed. Now this broad youth coalition voices the same concern.
On Independence Day, Jan. 4, the junta released over 9,600 prisoners in an act of clemency that is traditional in Burma. Of these, however, only 120 were from the 20,000 or so political prisoners jailed since the 2021 coup attempt. At least one of those who was released, an NLD parliamentarian from Bago Region, was re-arrested immediately, in a repeat of a familiar sadistic pattern of the regime. (The Irrawaddy B 1/4)
A consolidation of Revolutionary armed forces is underway. Recently PDFs in Launglone Township of Kawthoolei’s Beit-Tavoy District quit their local coalition to place themselves under the direct command of the National Unity Government Ministry of Defense. Two battalions of Karen forces detached themselves from the KTLA splinter faction to join the Karen National Liberation Army. Now a longstanding militia in Kutkai Township of northern Shan State, the Kaungkha People’s Army, has integrated itself into the Kachin army (KIA). (Myanmar Now 1/4) The consolidation bodes well for cohesion in the post-junta era, reducing the risk of localized small conflicts.
-စီၤ ထံဆၢ