ZOKHAWTHAR (India), Nov 17 — In the pre-dawn darkness on Monday, a 22-year-old Myanmar insurgent fighter approached a hill-top army camp in distant Chin State with dozens of comrades for an assault that opened up one other front in a mounting nationwide offensive towards the junta.
“We minimize the fencing wire,” mentioned Suan, who gave solely his first title. “I used to be the primary to enter. As quickly as I entered, they began firing at us.”
The battle at Khawmawi army camp, close to Myanmar’s porous border with India’s Mizoram state, lasted virtually 12 hours, in keeping with Suan and 5 different insurgent fighters and commanders.
Another army camp at Rihkhawdar was overrun by rebels inside a couple of hours, marking a key victory for a grassroots insurgency that has brewed in Chin State since a 2021 coup when Myanmar’s generals deposed a democratically elected authorities.
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The ethnic Chin fighters mentioned they used drones to drop bombs on the army bases, and junta troopers fought again — particularly fiercely at Khawmawi — often firing mortars.
“When we entered the camp, most troopers had already fled. But those that stayed, round 20 troopers, fought intensely,” mentioned Lawma, 26, who like Suan, lay at a hospital in India’s Champhai city after being wounded within the preventing.
At least 9 Chin fighters had been killed within the assault, together with six junta troopers, two Chin rebels mentioned, asking to not be named.
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Suan and Lawma’s account of the battle, which was corroborated by a insurgent commander and six residents who witnessed a number of the preventing, supplies a uncommon ground-level perception right into a widening assault towards Myanmar’s army junta.
A junta spokesman didn’t reply to calls looking for remark.
In late October, three ethnic minority rebel teams launched what they name “Operation 1027”, from the date their offensive started, to tackle junta troops in Shan State close to Myanmar’s border with China, profitable management of a number of cities and greater than 100 army outputs.
The Arakan Army, a part of Three Brotherhood Alliance that launched the offensive, additionally opened a front towards the army in western Rakhine State.
Insurgents are additionally beating again the army in Kayah State, which borders Thailand.
The offensive is probably the most critical problem to the junta for the reason that 2021 coup.
Zaw Min Tun, a junta spokesperson, mentioned late on Wednesday the army was going through “heavy assaults” on a number of fronts. The junta describes the rebels as “terrorists”.
A view of Myanmar’s Khawmawi village on the India-Myanmar border throughout the Tiau river as seen from Zokhawthar village in Champhai district of India’s northeastern state of Mizoram, India November 14, 2023. — eNM pic
Homemade weapons to drones
Lalchaka, a resident of the Indian border city of Zokhawthar, close to the overrun army camps, mentioned he initially heard gunshots on Sunday night however the firing intensified after rebels deployed drones to drop bombs at night time.
At the start of their insurgency, Chin fighters, together with college college students who took up arms, struggled to seek out weapons, usually utilizing home made weapons to tackle the army.
“At that point, from a army perspective, we had been younger,” mentioned Sui Khar, vice chairman of the Chin National Front, which participated in Monday’s assault that had been deliberate weeks upfront after reconnaissance.
Across Myanmar, junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun mentioned insurgents had been utilizing drones to drop a whole lot of bombs on army positions.
One Chin fighter mentioned their drones, which may carry as much as 6 kg (13 kilos), had been smuggled in from overseas, including: “We use drones in most of our operations”.
After the 2 army camps had been overrun, 43 junta troopers crossed over to India looking for shelter and most had been subsequently flown again to Myanmar.
On Wednesday, two days after the battle, Indian paramilitary troopers manned one facet of the Zokhawthar border crossing.
On the opposite facet stood armed Chin rebels, below a billowing Chin flag. — eNM
