Dec 16 (Reuters) – For seven days, insurgent fighter Khant and his comrades held the road as Myanmar’s army pounded their positions with artillery and drone strikes.
Khant is a veteran of quite a few battles in opposition to Myanmar’s junta because it seized energy in a 2021 coup, however he had seen nothing just like the depth of the preventing in central Myanmar in October.
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The strikes had been adopted by wave after wave of infantry, in accordance with Khant and Htike, a fellow insurgent who was additionally current on the battle for Pazun Myaung, a village roughly midway between Myanmar’s largest metropolis and its political capital.
“It was primarily an offensive utilizing all the ability they may muster,” Htike mentioned of 1 significantly robust five-hour interval of preventing.
After per week, the rebels’ losses turned too painful to bear they usually retreated to a close-by base.
The junta has reshaped its ways by introducing conscription and increasing its drone fleet, enabling it to reclaim some territory after defeats or stalemates on the battlefield. The generals have additionally been boosted by the backing of China, which has utilized diplomatic and monetary stress on resistance teams to cease preventing.
Three insurgent fighters, together with Htike and Khant, mentioned they’d witnessed the army utilizing “human wave” manoeuvres to overwhelm insurgent defences, reflecting new battlefield ways that haven’t beforehand been reported.
“After one soldier died, one other one got here as much as take his place,” mentioned Khant of the October battle, including that some seemed to be threatened at gunpoint by their commanders. Junta troops had beforehand been fast to flee as soon as losses began to mount, two insurgent fighters informed Reuters.
A spokesperson for Myanmar’s army didn’t reply to questions on modifications in its technique. The Nationwide Unity Authorities, a parallel anti-junta administration that features members of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s ousted authorities, additionally didn’t return requests for remark.
The modifications have helped the army mount a restricted comeback in at the very least three states, in accordance with a November briefing by the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore. However the junta’s battlefield positive aspects are uneven and it faces numerous insurgent armies which have differing ranges of power, the think-tank mentioned, which means no single entity dominates frontlines nationwide.
The push by Myanmar’s generals to regain misplaced territory coincides with a basic election scheduled to start on December 28 that United Nations chief Antonio Guterres and worldwide rights teams have mentioned shall be neither free nor truthful. Key opposition figures like Suu Kyi stay in detention and plenty of different anti-junta political teams have mentioned they’ll boycott the election.
The junta is more likely to be additional emboldened to hunt to reclaim extra territory as momentum shifts alongside the frontline, which stretches a whole lot of kilometres from China to the Bay of Bengal, mentioned Min Zaw Oo, government director of the Myanmar Institute for Peace and Safety think-tank.
“We’ll see extra armed clashes and extra makes an attempt from the army to retake territories within the coming three years,” he mentioned.
CONSCRIPTS AND DRONES
For the reason that announcement, 70,000 to 80,000 recruits have entered the army, in accordance with two army defectors and an analyst. The junta has introduced roughly 16 rounds of conscription and mentioned it should name up some 5,000 individuals at a time.
The army has a pressure of about 134,000, in accordance with an 2025 estimate by the Worldwide Institute for Strategic Research think-tank in London, down from 400,000 earlier than the coup.
The bolstered items are more and more led by seasoned officers, following a shake-up triggered by Operation 1027 when rebels captured round 150 army outposts inside a month, mentioned Min Zaw Oo.
“There was a interval the place officers had been promoted with out having appropriate subject expertise,” mentioned the analyst, including that he obtained the knowledge from individuals with direct information of junta personnel modifications. “The army took drastic actions to switch a whole lot of these officers.”
Maj. Naung Yoe, who left the junta after the coup and now researches the civil warfare, mentioned individuals with direct information of the postings had informed him that extra skilled officers had been taking on command positions beforehand handed out based mostly on favouritism.
Many items now have extra time to relaxation after lengthy battlefront deployments, one thing a stretched army had been unable to do within the years instantly after the coup, Min Zaw Oo and Naung Yoe mentioned.
The junta has additionally constructed up a fleet of unmanned aerial automobiles, together with suicide and scouting drones.
The army seems to have entry to 19 totally different UAV fashions, together with fixed-wing and multi-rotor drones made in China, Russia and Iran, in accordance with the Armed Battle Location & Occasion Information Mission, a coalition of worldwide researchers that tracks the Myanmar civil warfare.
Standard airstrikes stay the army’s most incessantly used tactic in 2025, ACLED information present, although these are actually more and more guided by intelligence gathered from reconnaissance and surveillance drones, mentioned Su Mon, an analyst with the group.
This mixture of ways has led to extra exact junta aerial assaults, she mentioned, including that her evaluation was based mostly on a assessment of media stories and interviews with native combatants.
Whereas resistance teams have entry to drones, they’re susceptible to junta UAVs on account of an absence of jamming expertise and air-defense programs, mentioned Su Mon and two insurgent fighters.
The army has additionally began to permit lower-level commanders to instantly request air help that beforehand required senior approval, enabling airstrikes on enemy defences forward of infantry assaults, in accordance with the three analysts.
BEIJING’S BACKING
A 3rd factor of the junta’s fightback is China.
Beijing has shut business and cultural ties to some anti-junta resistance teams, but it surely has traditionally considered Myanmar’s generals as guarantors of stability in its yard.
China has additionally leaned on armed teams such because the United Wa State Military to choke the move of weapons to different resistance items, in accordance with worldwide researchers.
“China froze UWSA-linked belongings, imposed border restrictions and demanded that the group minimize off provide of weapons to different teams,” the Worldwide Disaster Group mentioned in a November briefing on Beijing’s actions to help the junta after mid-2024.
China’s Overseas Ministry and UWSA didn’t return requests for remark.
Within the ruby-mining mountain city of Mogok, Chinese language stress on the Ta’ang Nationwide Liberation Military, one other militia with ties to Beijing, has restricted the supply of weapons and led to an entire halt in anti-junta resistance operations, native insurgent fighter Sanay informed Reuters.
A prime TNLA official confirmed in a December Fb submit that the group had been pressured right into a ceasefire by an absence of ammunition and cash, however didn’t elaborate. A spokesperson for the militia beforehand informed Reuters that TNLA had been topic to stress by Beijing.
“On the opposite aspect, the army council is launching offensives with superior forces,” mentioned Sanay, who fights for a militia allied with the TNLA.
“For those who look into the underlying purpose why we will not compete and are dropping floor within the offensives, it’s finally on account of stress from China.”
Extra reporting and writing by Devjyot Ghoshal; Modifying by Katerina Ang
Our Requirements: The Thomson Reuters Belief Ideas.
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