Myanmar junta troops stationed in an embattled border town have withdrawn from their positions, a spokesman for a Myanmar ethnic armed group and a Thai official told Agence France-Presse on Thursday.

“We took [Light Infantry Battalion] 275 at 10 pm last night,” Padoh Saw Taw Nee, a spokesman for the Karen National Union told AFP, adding 200 or so soldiers had withdrawn to a bridge that connects Kayin State’s Myawaddy town to the Thai border town of Mae Sot.

A Thai border official told AFP Myawaddy had “fallen” on Wednesday night, requesting anonymity as he was not authorised to talk to the media.

AFP cannot independent verify the KNU claim as reporters are unable to access Myawaddy.

Days of fighting around the trade hub of Myawaddy near the Myanmar-Thailand border saw hundreds of people queuing on Wednesday to cross into the kingdom, with many expressing fears over the clashes.
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“KNU have not entered the town yet, although we saw the news that they got local military command 275 on Facebook. We are still hiding at home,” the resident said, requesting anonymity for security reasons.

The border hub is vital for the cash-strapped junta, with an estimated US$1.1 billion worth of trade passing through Myawaddy in the 12 months to April, according to the Myanmar commerce ministry.
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Thailand – which shares a 2,400-kilometreborder with Myanmar – has said it is prepared to accept up to 100,000 people displaced by the clashes.

Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin met with high-level Thai ministers about the situation on the border earlier this week.

The number of people passing Thai immigration from Myanmar had increased to around 4,000 per day in recent days, an immigration official told AFP, up from the usual number of around 1,900.

He said authorities were reinforcing the number of immigration officials to address the possibility that arrivals would rise further in the coming days.

Jenny is one of hundreds of young people flocking to rebel-held territory to escape being conscripted into the Burmese army as it tries to plug major troop shortages.

Ever since the 2021 coup, the commander-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing and his forces have done everything in their power to stamp out any opposition, from shooting peaceful protesters to launching relentless air strikes to torching villages.

But they are continuing to lose troops – through defections and deaths – as well as territory to a loose alliance of ethnic rebel groups and a civilian militia movement that has squeezed the junta away from Myanmar’s borders with Thailand, Bangladesh, China and India and into a central rump of territory.

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The army began training conscripts in April after announcing it would impose a mandatory service law for men aged 18-35, or 45 for professionals.

The regime wants 60,000 sign ups in the first year to almost double its current troop strength, estimated at 70,000, but it is not an enticing pitch.

phuketrichard wrote: ↑Sun Apr 21, 2024 10:52 am "....Using air strikes against a defenceless civilian area in the hope of killing a few rebels is a desperate move and probably breaches international law.:

and yet its OK for Israel???

the longer this goes on, the more desperate the Junta becomes and as doc states, they are losing on all fronts

Thailand wont get involved, as both countries military leaders are close and so far, an internal affair>
other countries India, (https://www.justiceformyanmar.org/stori ... o-april-23)
& China (https://thediplomat.com/2022/04/china-p ... n-changes/) are supplying the junta with equipment, This must STOP

a good read:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... =url-share

and yet its OK for Israel???

Fighting raged at Myanmar’s eastern border with Thailand on Saturday, both governments said, forcing 3,000 civilians to flee as rebels fought to flush out Myanmar junta troops holed up for days at a bridge border crossing.

Resistance fighters and ethnic minority rebels seized the key trading town of Myawaddy on the Myanmar side of the frontier on 11 April, a blow to a well-equipped military struggling to govern and facing a test of battlefield credibility.

Witnesses on the Thai and Myanmar sides of the border said they heard explosions and heavy machine gun fire near a strategic bridge from late on Friday into Saturday.
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Myanmar’s military is facing its biggest challenge since taking control of the former British colony in 1962, caught up in multiple, low-intensity conflicts and grappling to stabilise an economy that has crumbled since a 2021 coup against Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s government.

The country is locked in a civil war between the military on one side and, on the other, a loose alliance of established ethnic minority armies and a resistance movement born out of the junta’s bloody crackdown on anti-coup protests.

BANGKOK— Southeast Asian regional bloc the Association of Southeast Asian Nations [ASEAN] said it is “deeply concerned” about a recent upsurge in fighting in Myanmar, after fierce clashes over a key trading hub on the Thai border.

The foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations urged “all parties for an immediate cessation of violence” in Myanmar, which has been roiled by conflict since the military seized power in a February 2021 coup.

The ministers’ statement issued late Thursday said 10-member ASEAN was “deeply concerned over the recent escalation of conflicts, including in the area of Myawaddy”.

The military was forced to pull its troops out of positions in the valuable trading post last week after days of battling the Karen National Union (KNU), a long-established ethnic minority armed group, and other anti-junta fighters.

It was the latest blow suffered by the junta, which has suffered a string of battlefield losses in recent months, with some analysts warning it was its most significant threat yet.

Myawaddy is important to the cash-strapped junta, with more than $1.1 billion worth of trade passing through it in the 12 months to April.
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However, despite the losses and uptick in fighting, analysts believe the junta is not in dire peril yet.

“In the larger scheme of things, the regime is clearly losing control of many areas in the periphery,” independent Myanmar analyst David Mathieson told AFP about the Myawaddy clashes.

“There is still a long way to go for the SAC to fall,” he said, using the acronym of the junta’s official name.

ASEAN has led diplomatic efforts to ease the crisis but has little to show for it, with more than 4,400 people killed and nearly 20,000 in detention in the military crackdown according to a local monitoring group.

Little progress has been made since 2021 when the bloc agreed on a five-point peace plan— which Myanmar signed up to but has failed to implement.

The military regime continues to deepen cooperation with Russia as its humiliating string of defeats in the country’s ethnic areas lengthens.

Junta national security advisor Admiral Moe Aung left Yangon on Sunday for St. Petersburg to attend the 12th International Meeting of High Representatives for Security Issues and related meetings from April 23-26 in the Russian city, junta media reported.

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The ties between Russia and the military regime have expanded beyond the arms trade and military training since the coup. The two pariah regimes now closely collaborate in almost every sector.

Moe Aung’s visit to Russia is occurring as the regime faces fierce attacks from ethnic armies and allied forces in northern, western and southeastern Myanmar.

The Arakan Army (AA) has steamrolled through Rakhine since it ended its informal ceasefire with Myanmar’s military in the state last November.

Now, it is fighting a battle that will determine the future of Rakhine people, the ethnic army’s spokesperson, Khaing Thukha, told The Irrawaddy.

“This is a critical moment,” he said during an interview about the military situation in Rakhine State and the AA’s progress towards its goal.

Since its founding 15 years ago it has been transformed from a handful of recruits training on a mountaintop in Kachin State into a giant killer.

Now one of the largest and most powerful of the country’s ethnic armies, it has seized most of northern Rakhine State since last November. Its political objective is for Rakhine to be at least a confederate state

The war in Myanmar is a fight between the regime and the people. Only when the fascist reime is wiped out from the Myanmar map will safety of the people be guaranteed. Without a guarantee for safety, there won’t be freedom. So, I would like to stress that we can only acquire freedom and safety after the regime is completely got rid of.