(This post is translation of news articles from various Burmese
Language Blogs.)
About
fifty bodies of insurgents were discovered inside the post and army captured
assorted weapons and massive amount of explosives and mines. Forty wounded
prisoners have also surrendered to the army and at present been receiving
necessary medical treatment from the army medical corps.
Most of
the surrendered and killed were Shan forced-recruits without appropriate
trainings and resources to fight off a major offensive by the disciplined and
battle-hardened troops of Burma army. According to a senior army officer the
captured KIA post was overlooking the Laiza on the border and the KIA headquarters
buildings can be seen clearly from there.
He also
added that Burma army is avoiding attacks on the civilian areas in the
KIA-controlled territory.
Under-aged Shan boys forcibly recruited into KIA. |
KIA's Shan-boy- recruits being trained with wooden-rifles. |
“We do not shell the civilian targets. The orders from above also prohibited us from shelling the civilian targets. I also directed all the troops under my command strictly not to touch the civilian targets. And that’s the reason we are having too many casualties as we have to avoid the civilian targets. But the bastard KIA took cover behind the civilians and ambushed our troops.
The KIA troops we’re facing now are mostly young Shan boys and girls forcibly recruited from the villages just last month or two and given a week or two of basic military training. And KIA sent these child soldiers up to the frontline to get shot to pieces by us,” said the same senior officer.
He stated that KIA Kachin leadership and most KIA
Kachins have cowardly abandoned their Shan troops and already moved into safer
China.
Concerning the KIA accusations on the internet of army
attacking and killing civilian refugees he replied, “The photos of so-called refugees are all KIA fighters and those young
forced-recruits. Some they didn’t even take of their uniforms. All KIA’s
propagandas and bullshits.”
Operation Thunderbolt
Captured Hill -771 at Lajaryan range near Laiza. |
51 KIA men including a major were killed. 12 from ABSDF
Northern a KIA’s ally were also killed while army has lost only seven men.
The captured KIA
men and boys admitted that they were given plenty of KIA’s self-produced Yaba
pills to stay on high and fight at their posts. Some KIA boys were found in locked-ankle-chians
so that they wouldn’t be able to abandon their last posts and run.
One of dead KIA soldiers in leg-chains found in the trenches on Lajaryan Hill 771. |
According to the army sources the ground troops
involved were LIB (Light Infantry Battalions) 317, 415, 416, 320, and IB-237.
The LIBs are from LID-88 and the elite LIDs (Light Infantry Divisions) are the main
forces to be used in capturing KIA HQ at Laiza as planned.
Army Has Had Enough of KIA's Deadly Ambushes
Burma’s so-called reformist president Thein Sein has unilaterally issued the well-publicized stop-all-combat-operations order direct to the army last year. Since then army has been suffering greatly as, without major combat operations regularly taking out KIA bases and columns, its troops taking only pure-defensive positions in Kachin State had become sitting ducks to KIA ambushes and guerrilla raids.
Last year alone army has lost at least 5,000 killed and many more wounded as the President's order has basically given KIA a free hand to attack the army posts and supply convoys and columns all over Kachin land. KIA claimed to have lost only 2,000 men. In one ambush alone last year 6 army officers and 42 other ranks were killed when 500-strong KIA units ambushed a convoy of IB 21 from Myitkyinar. (Please watch the video of that devastating ambush at the end of this post.)
The reliable sources from Burma’s secretive War Office confirmed that the army chief VSG Min Aung Hlaing and Vice-chief General Soe Win were recently seen arguing violently with President ex-general Thein Sein in his office in Naypyidaw to go ahead with this Operation Thunderbolt.
The generals' strategic aim was by tightly semi-circling Laiza and directly threatening to wipe out their HQ the recalcitrant KIA would be forced to stop or at least slow down their deadly guerrilla activities and eventually come back to the cease-fire and peace negotiation meetings sponsored by the China Bear.
Burma army's 105 mm Howitzers on the Dawphoneyan range near Laiza. |
Army Has Had Enough of KIA's Deadly Ambushes
Burma’s so-called reformist president Thein Sein has unilaterally issued the well-publicized stop-all-combat-operations order direct to the army last year. Since then army has been suffering greatly as, without major combat operations regularly taking out KIA bases and columns, its troops taking only pure-defensive positions in Kachin State had become sitting ducks to KIA ambushes and guerrilla raids.
Last year alone army has lost at least 5,000 killed and many more wounded as the President's order has basically given KIA a free hand to attack the army posts and supply convoys and columns all over Kachin land. KIA claimed to have lost only 2,000 men. In one ambush alone last year 6 army officers and 42 other ranks were killed when 500-strong KIA units ambushed a convoy of IB 21 from Myitkyinar. (Please watch the video of that devastating ambush at the end of this post.)
VSG Min Aung Hlaing and his generals. |
The reliable sources from Burma’s secretive War Office confirmed that the army chief VSG Min Aung Hlaing and Vice-chief General Soe Win were recently seen arguing violently with President ex-general Thein Sein in his office in Naypyidaw to go ahead with this Operation Thunderbolt.
The generals' strategic aim was by tightly semi-circling Laiza and directly threatening to wipe out their HQ the recalcitrant KIA would be forced to stop or at least slow down their deadly guerrilla activities and eventually come back to the cease-fire and peace negotiation meetings sponsored by the China Bear.
KIA human shield of locals and refugees around Laiza HQ. |
Army sources
have already openly admitted that the continuous shelling from their heavy 105
mm Howitzers will continue on as, instead of costing a fortune firing expensive
shells, Burmese army has been making approximately US$ 14.5 for each shell
fired as the shells used are from the Singapore Armed Forces and these shells
are expired shells needed to be destroyed.
But Singapore has no place to destroy these highly
explosive shells and so they are contracting Burmese army to destroy their
expired 105 mm shells. And Burmese army has found the most profitable way to destroy
these shells by dropping them constantly on the stubborn KIA kachins.
At present many from KIA have been surrendering to the
army as the constant shelling and air raids have highly-destabilizing effects on
the morale of KIA troops.
“Once they heard
the jets flying over we couldn’t control our men to stay put. We’d been shelled
enough. They just panicked with dreadful fear and ran. We have orders from
above not to abandon the positions. But we couldn’t help it,” admitted the Kachin
officer leading the group of 16 KIA men recently surrendered to the local
People Militia near Lajaryan.
There was a recent case of whole 70-strong KIA unit
surrendering to the army after their leader was executed personally by the KIA
general Gam Shaung when he refused to fight the Army mobile column entering their
KIA territory in North-Eastern Shan State.
Now KIA generals
Gam Shaung and Gun Maw are prolonging the nasty civil war while still running their
multi-million dollar Hotels and their lucrative jade and timber trading businesses from their luxurious
houses inside much-safer China.
But they are still forcing their boy and girl soldiers in
the trenches around Laiza to fight off the gradually tightening hold of Burmese
army with their young, miserable lives.
KIA General Gam Shaung in China. |
KIA General Gun Maw and his Kachin officers. |
(KIA Deadly Ambush of IB-21 Convoy Last Year)