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SINGAPORE – Rebel groups in Myanmar say they have won a series of battlefield victories against the ruling junta, in what security analysts say is the biggest threat to the military’s grip on the country since it toppled a civilian government and seized control in a coup in 2021.
The surprise offensive, which began in the north, has displaced tens of thousands of people along Myanmar’s border with China, according to the United Nations. The campaign has disrupted businesses along the border, angered Beijing and strained the military’s relationship with one of its few remaining allies.
Myanmar’s military has been embroiled in a civil war on multiple fronts for nearly three years, facing attacks from ethnic armed groups in its border areas as well as from newer, pro-democracy insurgents in the center of the country who took up arms after the coup. The military has tried to suppress resistance using brutal tactics that human rights groups say are likely war crimes.
On October 27, an alliance of three ethnic armed organizations that had largely stayed out of the conflict launched the sudden, coordinated offensive in the strategic northern state of Shan, which borders China, Laos and Thailand.
Within 10 days, the Three Brothers Alliance said it had captured more than 100 military outposts and taken control of several key highways and border crossings, which is expected to hurt the junta financially. Photos and videos posted on social media show rebel soldiers marching triumphantly through townships and posing with weapons reportedly taken from military battalions.
Speaking to a state broadcaster last week, a junta spokesman, General Zaw Min Tun, made a rare admission that the military had relinquished control of three towns in Shan.
“It took us a long time to plan this operation,” Tar Aik Kyaw, a spokesman for the Ta’Ang National Liberation Army, one of the groups in the alliance, said in an interview. “We had to prepare everything methodically… to minimize losses on our side.”
The Ta’Ang National Liberation Army and its two allied organizations, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army and the Arakan Army, “welcome any other group fighting against the military,” he added.
A spokesman for Myanmar Witness, a monitoring group that verifies information about the civil war, said investigators had begun collecting a significant amount of visual evidence of the offensive. “In an area of the country where we typically see conflict incidents only sporadically on open source channels, this represents a significant change,” said spokesman Matt Freear.
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Days after the offensive in the north, rebels in the south and insurgents in the center of the country began their own attacks. In the Sagaing region, near the city of Mandalay, pro-democracy groups said Tuesday they had retaken two townships that were under military control for the first time.
Many of the country’s armed groups are individually too small to topple the military, but in the past week they have shown unprecedented levels of cooperation, said Zachary Abuza, a professor at the National War College in Washington who studies Southeast Asian security issues. “They acknowledge each other and move forward together. That’s what’s interesting here.”
The Three Brotherhood Alliance groups have close ties to China and are among the most powerful armed actors in the area along the border with Myanmar. Unlike some other rebel groups, the alliance did not immediately join the resistance after the coup and, at least publicly, maintained a neutral position between the democracy movement and the military.
But as the junta stepped up airstrikes across the country this year, clashes broke out between alliance units and forces in Shan. Tensions also increased over the spread of illegal activities in military-controlled areas. Alliance leaders said one goal of the attack was to eliminate cyber fraud operations thriving in the lawless Kokang area.
The fighting has disrupted travel and trade between northern Shan and China and may have blocked a key source of funding for the military. In response to the offensive, China said on Monday that Deputy Foreign Minister Nong Rong visited Myanmar over the weekend and urged officials to “maintain stability” along the border. It is not immediately clear whether Beijing knew about the alliance’s plan for a surprise attack.
Myanmar’s military said it bombed “terrorists.” It killed children.
Leaders and supporters of the democracy movement celebrated the offensive as a turning point in the war. But analysts say the rebel groups are pursuing their own interests and that their ties to the democracy movement are tenuous at best. The military’s commander-in-chief, Min Aung Hlaing, also announced in recent days that he would respond with counter-offensives.
Not far from Shan, another rebel group, the Kachin Independence Army, was subjected to a barrage of airstrikes and artillery fire after seizing control of two military camps in October. People had been hiding in the group’s command center in the town of Laiza for more than a week, said group spokesman Col. Naw Bu.
Cape Diamond in Yangon, Myanmar, and Yan Naing in Bangkok contributed to this report.