A top leader of Myanmar's rebel Karen National Union (KNU) was likely killed by a professional hitman, possibly hired by a splinter group aligned with the ruling junta, a KNU spokesman said yesterday.
The spokesman said a rival group probably ordered the assassination of Pado Manh Sha to sow divisions in the already weakened rebellion which has been battling Myanmar's rulers for nearly six decades.
Two gunmen shot dead Pado Manh Sha, the KNU's secretary-general based in the Thai border town of Mae Sot, at his home on Thursday, Thai police said.
One of the most prominent figures in the KNU, he was also a critical link between the rebellion and the pro-democracy movement inside Myanmar.
KNU spokesman David Thaw said the group's leadership would gather yesterday in Mae Sot to make funeral preparations and try to unravel the mystery of his killing.
"There's a lot of confusion," he said by telephone.
"At the moment we think that it must be someone trying to create problems for the Karen, to create more disunity and divisions among each other," he said. "It might be a professional killer, so someone might have hired this gunman. It is a very cold-blooded killer who can kill Pado Manh Sha at his house."
"The gunshot was very accurate for someone to die instantly," he said.
Thai police said they were combing through Pado Manh Sha's two-story house to search for clues, but admitted they were struggling to find a solid lead.
"We are investigating to look for more evidence," a senior provincial police officer said.
A Thai military officer in Mae Sot said on condition of anonymity that investigators believe the killing was likely committed by a Karen splinter group such as the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA).
Most Karen are Christians, but the DKBA has broken away and aligned itself with Myanmar's junta, which has ruled the country since 1962.
The KNU is the largest rebel group fighting against Myanmar's armed forces and one of the few remaining ethnic insurgencies that has yet to sign a peace deal with the junta.
The group once controlled broad swaths of eastern Myanmar but now is reduced mainly to a string of bases pressed against the Thai border.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘BODIES EVERYWHERE’: The incident occurred at a Filipino festival celebrating an anti-colonial leader, with the driver described as a ‘lone suspect’ known to police Canadian police arrested a man on Saturday after a car plowed into a street party in the western Canadian city of Vancouver, killing a number of people. Authorities said the incident happened shortly after 8pm in Vancouver’s Sunset on Fraser neighborhood as members of the Filipino community gathered to celebrate Lapu Lapu Day. The festival, which commemorates a Filipino anti-colonial leader from the 16th century, falls this year on the weekend before Canada’s election. A 30-year-old local man was arrested at the scene, Vancouver police wrote on X. The driver was a “lone suspect” known to police, a police spokesperson told journalists at the
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has unveiled a new naval destroyer, claiming it as a significant advancement toward his goal of expanding the operational range and preemptive strike capabilities of his nuclear-armed military, state media said yesterday. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim attended the launching ceremony for the 5,000-tonne warship on Friday at the western port of Nampo. Kim framed the arms buildup as a response to perceived threats from the US and its allies in Asia, who have been expanding joint military exercises amid rising tensions over the North’s nuclear program. He added that the acquisition
RSS