BANGKOK (TIP): Three well-armed militias launched a surprise joint offensive in northeastern Myanmar a year ago, breaking a strategic stalemate with the regime’s military with rapid gains of huge swaths of territory and inspiring others to attack around the country.
Before the offensive, the military’s control had seemed firmly ensconced with its vast superiority in troops and firepower, and aided with material support from Russia and China. But today it is increasingly on the back foot, with the loss of dozens of outposts, bases and strategic cities that even its leaders concede will be challenging to regain.
The military seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021, giving rise to intensified fighting with long-established armed groups associated with Myanmar’s ethnic minority groups, and sparking the formation of new pro-democracy militias.
But until the launch of Operation 1027, eponymously named for its Oct. 27 start, the military, known as the Tatmadaw, had largely been able to prevent major losses around the country.
Operation 1027 brought coordinated attacks from three of the most powerful ethnic armed groups — the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, the Arakan Army and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, together known as the Three Brotherhood Alliance — and they were able to quickly capture towns and overrun military bases and outposts along the Chinese border in northeastern Shan state. Two weeks later the Arakan Army launched attacks in its home western state of Rakhine, and since then other militia groups and PDFs have joined in around the country.
A year later into the offensive, resistance forces now fully or partially control a vast horseshoe of territory that reaches from Rakhine state in the west, across the north, and then south into Kayah and Kayin states along the Thai border. The Tatmadaw has pulled back toward the center around the capital Naypyidaw and largest city of Yangon.
Many expect the military to launch a counteroffensive when the rainy season soon comes to an end, bolstered with the influx of some 30,000 new troops since activating conscription in February and its continued complete air superiority. But at the same time, resistance groups are closing in on Mandalay, Myanmar’s second largest city in the center of the country. Facing threats from all around the country, “it doesn’t look like there’s any viable route back for the military to recapture any of the territory that it’s lost,” said Connor Macdonald of the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar advocacy group. (AP)