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Tuesday, April 9, 2024

Myawaddy Has Fallen into Karen Hands

             (Based on the Staff posts from the KHIT THIT MEDIA on April 7&8, 2024.)

Karen troops at captured Myawaddy Town.
The most crucial border town on the Thai-Burma border line has fallen into the hands of KNU (Karen National Union) controlled KNLA (Karen National Liberation Army) after her Burmese sister town Thin-gan-nyi-naung surrendered to the said ethnic rebels on April-5.

Thin-gan-nyi-naung Strategic Hill Camp of Myanma Army was attacked on 8 Am, April-5,  and the Myanmar troops surrendered on 1 pm same day without a serious fight at all. Altogether 617 Myanmar Army personnel including 67 officers, 410 other ranks, 59 feamle soldiers, and 81 family members had willingly laid down their weapons and surrendered.

Once Thin-gan-nyi-naung has fallen the end-of-road-town Myawaddy on the Thai Border was completely cut-off from the rest of the country and the only way out for the government staff and Myanmar Army troops trapped in the Myawaddy Town was to cross the border to the Maesot Town in Thailand.

So Myanmar Militay Government asked for a permission from Thai Government to allow the (MNA)  Myanma National Airway’s ATR planes to land at Maesot Airport to bring the hundreds or even thousands of Myanmar Soldiers back to Burma on April 7,8, & 9.

Thus in the dark night of April-7 the MNA plane ATR 72-600 pilotted by two Myanmar Air Force captains flew to Maesot and then back to Myanmar. There are no confirmations of returning Myanmar soldiers but the transfer of billions of Myanma kyats from the Myawaddy banks, both government-owned and private-owned was visually confirmed by the indiders.

The huge amount of cash in enormous boxes were trucked across the No-2 Friendship Bridge from Myawaddy to Maesot and then loaded into the waiting MNA plane. Myawaddy was the most important broder tading town in Myanma and more than two billion US$ worth of goods a year crossed the border to and from Burma. Thus the mountainous stash of Myanmar kyats and Thai bahts have been kept in Myawaddy banks.

Later the news came out that the KNLA did not let the surrendered Myanmar soldiers go and thus the planned plane trips were to be cancelled and one early plane had to return to Yangon empty-handed.

Drones Dropped Bombs on Moulmein Army Command

In the night of April-8 the KNLA’s Dorne Forces attacked the South Eastern Divisional Command (Ya-Ta-Kha) at Moulmein while Vice-Senior-General Soe Win was in an emergency meeting with the senior officers to plan to take back Yhin-gan-nyi-naung and Myawaddy towns.

The Light Infantry Division LID-22 now at Pha-an was said to have assigned to lead the assault operation and KNLA forces thus launched many fixed-wings suicide drones there to kill Vice-General Nyunt Win Swe the LID-22 Commander and his senior officers.

KNLA later declared that the existence of Myanmar troops in their Karen Land has been creating a forever fearful environment and thus seriously disturbing the peace and progress of their people and thus their ultimate aim was to remove Myanmar Army troops from their ancestral land by any way possible.

Who is running Myawaddy Now?

There is major confusion on who really is occupying the Myawaddy Town since the Myanmar Army troops surrendered to another Karen group called KNA (Karen National Army) which was formerly known as Myanmar Army-allied Karen BGF (Border Gurad Force) a.k.a. DKBA (Democratic Karen Buddhist Army).

Brigadier-General Htun Htun Latt the Tactical Commander of Thin-gan-nyi-naung has personally surrendered to BGF Commander Saw Chit Thu so that he and his family with all their mountain of illicit cash would be safely returned to Rangoon.

The Buddhist KNA is the bitter enemy of Christian KNLA and according to inside sources KNA did agree to send the surrendered Myanma troops back to Myanma by air through Maesot Airport. But KNLA had blocked that proposal and refused to let the surrendered Myanmar troops at Thin-gan-nyi-naung go through Myawaddy to Maesot.

Apparently the KNA has the control of Myawaddy Town itself but more numerous KNLA troops are controlling the surroundings and without their permission no one can get out off or in to Myawaddy Town.

Karen BGF to rename itself ‘Karen National Army’

The move, which has yet to be officially announced, is seen as the latest step in efforts by the Border Guard Force to distance itself from Myanmar’s military. The Karen Border Guard Force (BGF) says it is planning to rebrand itself as the “Karen National Army,” completing its break from Myanmar’s military.

Major Naing Maung Zaw, the spokesperson for the Karen BGF, confirmed the move on Tuesday, telling Myanmar Now that the group would make an official announcement later this month. “We have reached a general agreement, but we still have to present the idea to our rank-and-file troops before we fully implement it,” he said. He added that the BGF has had no communication with the Myanmar regime since it declared in January that it would no longer accept salaries or other forms of financial support from the junta.

Insiders are claiming that the BGF boss Saw Chit Thu, who is protecting all cyber-scam businesses in Karen State and massively profiting from them, is now trying to distance his BGF and himself from the Myanmar Army under China’s pressure to arrest and extradite him to China.

Town Garrisom LIB-275 Hiding Under Bridge

More than 200 strong town garrison LIB-275 was defeated and the 50-odd surviving Myanmar soldiers fled and were trying to enter Maesot but the battalion strength Thai Army soldiers guarding the Thai side refused them the entry.

Finally the Myanmar soldiers ended up taking refuge under the No-2 Friendship Bridge. They are now hopelessly digging in the hurriedly-dug fox holes in the Bridge Compound and on the river bank under the bridge and still refusing to lay down their arms and surrender to either the KNLA or KNA.

Meanwhile besieged Myanmar Army is trying to retake Myawaddy by sending nearly 2,000 troops of LID-55 down from Pha-an but them columns were blocked by KNLA forces on the Asia road well before Myawaddy.

Myawaddy Town is now controlled by Saw Chit Thu’s KNA (BGF) force, 3000 strong, while massive combined forces of KNU’s KNLA & NUG’s PDF surrounded the town. Another combined force had also intercepted and ambushing the Myanmar Army’s mobile column heading towards Myawaddy at just after the Kawkareik Town.

The nearly 1,000-strong army column led by heavy tanks and supported by multi-launch rocket trucks is now at the base of Dawna Range just east of Kawkareik Town and trying to go over the Dawna Range to reach Thin-gan-nyi-naung and then to Myawaddy.