(Based
on the Staff posts from the KHIT THIT MEDIA on April 7&8, 2024.)
 |
| Karen troops at captured Myawaddy Town. |
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.
