Ethnic Karen guerrillas yesterday said they had captured a Burmese army base near the border with Thailand, representing a morale-boosting action for those opposing the military’s takeover of the nation’s civilian government in February.
Myanmar’s military staged airstrikes several hours later on villages in territory controlled by the Karen forces, said a guerrilla spokesman, a senior Thai official and a relief worker.
A spokesman for the Karen National Union (KNU), the minority’s main political group seeking greater autonomy from Myanmar’s central government, said that its armed wing attacked the base at 5am and burned it down just after dawn.
Photo: AFP / Kawthoolei Today
Casualty figures were not yet known, KNU head of foreign affairs Padoh Saw Taw Nee said in a text message.
There was no immediate comment from Myanmar’s military government.
The KNU, which controls territory in eastern Myanmar near the Thai border, is a close ally of the resistance movement against the military takeover that ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. Its armed wing is called the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA).
Video shot from the Thai side of the border showed flames rising from the government position on the banks of the Salween River, amid the sound of heavy gunfire. The river marks the border with Thailand.
A report by online news site Karen Information Center quoted an unnamed villager on the Thai side of the river as saying he saw seven government soldiers trying to flee the camp, which is opposite Thailand’s Mae Sam Laep Village.
Padoh Man Man of the KNLA’s 5th Brigade, which launched the morning attack, said that the Burmese military carried out airstrikes in the early afternoon, but he did not know how many casualties there were.
He described the air raids as a “heinous war crime” and called for the international community to pressure the junta to stop them.
Sithichai Jindaluang, the governor of Thailand’s Mae Hong Son Province, confirmed at a news conference that Karen guerrillas had overrun the Burmese base and said a woman on Thai soil was wounded by a stray bullet during the morning’s fighting.
About 450 villagers have been evacuated from Mae Sam Lap for their own safety, he said.
Sithichai also said a Burmese military aircraft later bombed a Karen village.
Dave Eubank of the Free Burma Rangers, a humanitarian aid group with extensive experience in the area, said that he could confirm that there had been airstrikes on Karen villages in two townships in Papun District.
He said the Burmese army was also staging ground attacks in the area. Neither he nor the governor had casualty figures available.
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
SHIFT: Taiwan’s better-than-expected first-quarter GDP and signs of weakness in the US have driven global capital back to emerging markets, the central bank head said The central bank yesterday blamed market speculation for the steep rise in the local currency, and urged exporters and financial institutions to stay calm and stop panic sell-offs to avoid hurting their own profitability. The nation’s top monetary policymaker said that it would step in, if necessary, to maintain order and stability in the foreign exchange market. The remarks came as the NT dollar yesterday closed up NT$0.919 to NT$30.145 against the US dollar in Taipei trading, after rising as high as NT$29.59 in intraday trading. The local currency has surged 5.85 percent against the greenback over the past two sessions, central
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
RSS