An effort by Myanmar’s military to retake towns it lost to a rebel offensive in the heartland has prompted fierce fighting, sending thousands of civilians scrambling for shelter, residents said Monday.
In their renewed push, junta forces are increasingly using Chinese-made surveillance and combat drones, rebels say, several of which have fallen into the hands of guerrilla groups.
The fighting in the central Mandalay region comes almost a year after the Three Brotherhood Alliance of ethnic armies launched their Operation 1027 offensive -- named for its Oct. 27, 2023, start date -- which drove the military from territory in northern Shan state and other regions following its 2021 coup d’etat.
Pro-democracy militias, known as People’s Defense Forces, or PDFs -- formed by civilians after the coup to fight the military -- also launched offensives, capturing central areas, including around Myanmar’s second-biggest city of Mandalay.
For months, it seemed like the military was pushed back on its heels.
But two of the three “Brotherhood” armies -- the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, or MNDAA, and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, or TNLA -- recently agreed to ceasefires after pressure from neighboring China for them to talk peace.
That may have given junta forces impetus to re-take territory it lost over the past year.
Over the past month, junta troops have attacked the towns of Po Wa, Sine Kone and surrounding villages “multiple times,” said a resident of Madaya, 48 kilometers (30 miles) north of Mandalay.
In recent days, junta troops have attacked several towns and villages in Mandalay region, sending residents fleeing, they told RFA Burmese.
On Sunday, junta troops set fire to houses in Po Wa (North) and Sin Kone villages, in western Madaya township, destroying about 300 homes.
“Nearly the entire western region has been destroyed in the military raids,” said a Madaya resident who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns. “There are no residents left in the western part of Madaya -- everyone has fled.”
According to the resident “around 10,000 residents from five villages” have been displaced due to the military’s advance.
Retaking villages
Meanwhile, on Dec. 4, junta forces regained control of Twin Nge village, with more than 1,000 houses and 4,000 residents, in Thabeikkyin district, bordering Madaya, residents said. The village is on a road connection from Thabeikkyin to the townships of Shwegu and Bhamo in Kachin state, as well as Mongmit in northern Shan state.
Maung Maung Swe, the deputy secretary of the Ministry of Defense for Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government, or NUG, told RFA that the military’s deployment of large forces in concentrated offensives had forced the PDF to cede certain areas.
“[The military] deployed additional troops by air and launched offensives with air support,” he said. “As a result, we had to withdraw from some of the camps we had been holding due to the size of their advancing forces.”
In Myingyan district, areas abandoned by the military have been taken over by the pro-junta Pyu Saw Htee militia, which has launched its own campaign of arson and attacks, according to residents and the PDF.
An official from the Myingyan PDF told RFA that the junta’s offensive in areas it previously abandoned is aimed at regaining control and facilitating the holding of elections there.
The junta chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, has vowed to complete a census by the end of the year and then hold “free and fair elections,” but opponents and rebel leaders have dismissed the ballot as a sham, and a way for the military to legitimize its grip on power.
The census, aimed at tallying voters ahead of the 2025 elections, has met strong opposition from ethnic minority insurgent groups who say preparations for a nationwide vote are impossible while they battle a regime that continues to arrest and kill its critics.
Attempts by RFA to reach the junta’s spokesperson for the Mandalay region for comment on the situation went unanswered on Monday.
Chinese drones
In the first year or two of the conflict, rebel groups used drones as a low-cost method to level the playing field against the better-equipped military.
But at the end of 2023, the junta began buying Chinese drones and conducting training for its troops, according to former military officials.
Now, the military is using Chinese drones to fight its enemies across the country, said an anti-junta fighter who asked to be identified as Nyein, who runs the Cloud Wings drone unit based in Kayin state.
“The military junta has extensively used drones in almost all their battles,” he said. “They widely use Chinese drones, along with Chinese technology and hardware.”
Reports of widespread use of Chinese drones by the military follow a Sept. 26 announcement by the junta’s deputy minister for home affairs, Lt. Gen. Ni Lin Aung, that the regime had sought China’s assistance to “curb the flow of unmanned aerial vehicles” to the armed opposition.
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Htoo Khant Zaw, a press officer for the People’s Defense Comrade, which monitors airstrikes, told RFA that the junta has been using Chinese-made attack drones more frequently in townships in central Myanmar’s Sagaing region.
Other PDF officials told RFA that junta forces have been deploying Chinese drones “day and night” in Magway region to drop bombs and surveil rebel fighters.
RFA received no response from China’s embassy to inquiries regarding the junta’s use of Chinese drones. Attempts to reach junta spokesperson Major General Zaw Min Tun for a response to reports of civilian casualties caused by Chinese drones also went unanswered.
According to figures compiled by RFA, military drone attacks in October and November killed 13 civilians, including women and children, and injured 43.
Kachin rebels in talks with China
Meanwhile, battlefield successes by rebel groups have alarmed China, which has extensive economic interests in its neighbor to the south, including energy pipelines running up from the Indian Ocean and mining projects.
China has thrown its support behind the junta and its plans for an election next year, putting pressure on insurgent groups to respond positively to recent junta offers of talks.
General N’Ban La, the leader of one of the groups -- the Kachin Independence Organization, or KIO, in Kachin state -- has been holding talks with Chinese officials in China since Sunday, according to KIO spokesperson Major General Naw Bu, amid heavy fighting between Kachin rebels and the junta in Bamaw and Mansi townships.
“China and the KIO usually meet once a month or once every couple of months,” he said. “We were not made aware of the topic of discussion.”
Naw Bu said that the names of those in attendance from the China side and the venue for the talks had not been made public.
After the KIO’s armed wing, the Kachin Independence Army, or KIA, attacked and captured all border posts along Kachin state’s border with China in November, Beijing responded by closing its border gates, halting all trade.
Kachin political commentator Sha Bat said the meeting could be aimed at stabilizing the border region, reopening gates to trade, and preempting closer ties between rebels and Western governments.
Despite Chinese pressure since early October, the KIA has been attacking Bamaw township after seizing the rare earth mining towns of Chipwi and Sawt Lau, as well as the border towns of Panwa and Kan Paik Ti.
The KIA controls 13 towns in Kachin state and neighboring northern Shan state.
Translated by Aung Naing for RFA Burmese. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.