Following the Pahalgam attack on April 22, a number of state heads including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, condemning the terrorist attack and expressing support to India’s fight against terror.
Meanwhile, a note verbale (a diplomatic message or memo) signed by former Israeli ambassador to India Naor Gilon was shared on social media. In the note, Israel has seemingly accused an unnamed Indian Army officer of sexually abusing Israeli Defense Force female soldier Tzipi Cohen during a military exercise in Jammu and Kashmir. It is also mentioned that the incident marked a violation of India’s obligations under customary international law and called for a prompt, transparent and impartial investigation.
Pakistani X handle @commandeleven claimed that the Embassy of Israel had issued a note of formal diplomatic protest (Note Verbale) to the Indian ministry of external affairs accusing Indian Army Colonel Kamaldeep Singh, Commanding Officer of 6 Para (SF) of sexually assaulting IDF Sergeant Tzipi Cohen during a joint military exercise in the Jammu region of Kashmir. (Archived link)
Alt News noticed that the viral Note Verbale is signed by former Israeli Ambassador to India Naor Gilon, who was serving as Israel’s Ambassador to India until 2024, while the current ambassador is Reuven Azar.
A “Note Verbale” is a diplomatic communication sent from one government to another, and it is officially delivered through the embassy. It is a kind of formal communication that is usually written in the third person and not signed.
We performed a customised keyword search using terms from the Israeli Embassy’s Note Verbale, as per the viral claim, but could not find any credible media reports that could confirm this viral claim.
Next, Alt News came across a post by the Israeli Embassy in India on X (formerly Twitter). In this post, the screenshot of the viral ‘Note Verbale’ has been posted and the alleged claims have been denied and this ‘Note Verbale’ has also been called fake. The accompanying caption reads, “Unbelievable, the relationship between Israel and India is so solid, haters resort to fake news to try to harm it. It will not work.”
In other words, the Embassy of Israel has not issued any ‘Note Verbale’ to the Union ministry of external affairs of India. Furthermore, the viral claim that an Indian Army officer sexually harassed an Israeli female soldier is also false.
The U.S. Treasury Department on Monday blacklisted a Myanmar militia group, its leader Saw Chit Thu and his two sons for facilitating cyber scams from territory they control on the Thai-Myanmar border.
The Karen National Army, or KNA, formerly known as the Karen Border Guard, was designated as a “significant transnational criminal organization” that is barred from holding property in the United States and conducting transactions with U.S. persons.
The two other individuals affected by the action are Saw Htoo Eh Moo and Saw Chit Chit, who are sons of Saw Chit Thu.
The Treasury Department said in a statement said Americans suffered financial losses from sophisticated cyber scams emanating from Myanmar and other Southeast Asian countries, amounting to over $2 billion in 2022 and $3.5 billion in 2023.
“Treasury is committed to using all available tools to disrupt these networks and hold accountable those who seek to profit from these criminal schemes,” Treasury Deputy Secretary Michael Faulkender was quoted as saying.
KNA is headquartered in Shwe Kokko, in Myawaddy township, which lies just south of the main crossing point between eastern Myanmar and Thailand. The militia was formed by fighters who broke away from the anti-military Karen National Union insurgent group in the 1990s. It became one of several military-backed Border Guard Forces in 2009.
Since 2017, Shwe Kokko, on the banks of the Moei River that defines that part of the Myanmar-Thai border, has become the site of a glitzy construction binge – fruits of a joint venture called Yatai International Holding Group Company Limited involving She Zhijiang is a naturalized Cambodian born in China who owns property and gaming ventures across Myanmar, Cambodia and the Philippines. He was arrested in Thailand in 2022.
Treasury said the KNA has leveraged its former role as a Border Guard Force allied with the Myanmar military “to facilitate a trans-border criminal empire.” Although the group changed its name in March 2024, it has continued its cooperation with the Burmese military as recently as September 2024, it said.
Treasury said the KNA profits from cyber scam schemes “on an industrial scale” by leasing land it controls to other organized crime groups, providing security and providing support for human trafficking, smuggling, and the sale of utilities used to provide energy to scam operations.
The statement said scammers, who are often themselves lured or trafficked into prison-like call centers or retrofitted hotels and casinos, are forced, with threats of physical violence and humiliation, into scamming strangers online.
Treasury described Saw Chit Thu as “a key enabler of scam operations in the region.” His sons Saw Htoo Eh Moo and Saw Chit Chit are officers in KNA and both have served in key roles in the KNA criminal enterprise, the statement said.
Saw Chit Thu and the KNA could not immediately be reached for comment Monday.
Edited by Mat Pennington.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Staff.
Authorities in North Korea have ordered schools across the country to raise more rabbits to supply and feed its army or face punishment, sources told Radio Free Asia.
Ahead of the 93rd founding anniversary of North Korea’s armed forces on Friday authorities have launched inspections of rabbit breeding farms in schools across the communist country, demanding they increase the livestock supplied to local army units.
Reeling from persistent food shortages since the mid-1990s, the North Korean regime has been actively promoting the raising of “grass-fed” livestock like rabbits and goats as sources of meat.
In particular, it has emphasized the breeding of bunnies, as they provide both meat and high-quality fur, with authorities establishing rabbit breeding associations and farms in cities and counties across the country and making it a key state initiative.
The inspections of school rabbit pens – that began last week for the first time in schools – are being carried out by the provincial-level youth league committee leaders under orders from the provincial party, said a source based in South Pyongan province.
In North Korea, the children’s union, which students aged 9-13 are required to join, and the youth league, which include those in the 14-18 age group, are mass political organizations that educate young people in socialist ideology and loyalty.
The instructors in charge of the youth league at each school are tasked with meeting the breeding targets.
“While it’s been common for the authorities to emphasize expanding rabbit farms every year to supply more meat and leather to the military, this is the first time they are actually inspecting schools,” the source told Radio Free Asia. He requested anonymity for safety reasons.
These inspections focus on the scale of the farms and the number of bunnies – both breeding rabbits and their young offspring, he said.
Youth league instructors at schools that fail to meet the target of at least 1,000 rabbits are being warned or subjected to punishment, including expulsion from the committee or dismissal from their positions, he said.
“Responsibility falls on the youth league instructors because the rabbit farm management and feeding activities are carried out through organized teams made up of children’s union and youth league members,” he said.
“The breeding rabbits tallied during inspections — excluding seed stock — are to be sent to local military units as support supplies by April 25,” he added.
Despite the challenges of running these farms, authorities have ordered all schools in Gowon county to provide 300 breeding rabbits each to the military by April 25, said a source based in South Hamgyong province, in North Korea’s northeastern corner.
“To mark the (army’s founding) anniversary, inspections of school rabbit farms began in Gowon County alongside support efforts for the military,” he said.
“Some teachers are expressing frustration,” the source noted. “They’re saying schools are meant to be places for students to learn — not military supply bases.”
To feed the rabbits in breeding farms at schools, teenage students are forced to wander the fields to source grass as they are not allowed to collect clover in the mountains due to forest protection rules, he said.
Since the 1970s, North Korea has required middle and high school students to raise rabbits and offer them to the state, while farmers must fulfill the country’s annual meat purchase quotas.
Many will never taste the meat they produce as most is submitted to the authorities, with the remainder consumed or sold by corrupt officials, previous reports have said.
In 2010, several international charities raised money to send giant rabbits to North Korea to breed as a cheap source of protein, but the animals vanished amid speculation that they had been quickly seized and eaten by officials.
Translated by Jaewoo Park. Edited by Tenzin Pema and Mat Pennington
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Son Hye-min for RFA Korean.
Myanmar’s junta re-entered a northern city near the Chinese border on Tuesday abandoned by a rebel army after months of occupation, residents told Radio Free Asia.
The Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, or MNDAA, is one of many insurgent groups fighting the junta that seized power in a 2021 coup for autonomy and democracy. It controls parts of northern Shan state and until recently, the long-embattled town of Lashio. Frequent conflict and airstrikes have forced much of the population to flee and reduced some wards to looted rubble.
Junta soldiers re-entered Lashio early on Tuesday morning to reclaim the city abandoned by the MNDAA days prior, one resident said.
“From near city hall to the city entrance, it was full of cars, at least 50. Some soldiers got down from the cars wearing military uniforms and black masks, then I saw they had machine guns mounted on the car,” he said, identifying the group as Divisions 33, 99 and 77.
“I think they’re waiting for troops to be fully equipped before they re-deploy.”
The MNDAA removed personnel, offices and equipment from the city on Friday, making final preparations on Tuesday, residents said. Some added that they were concerned about the large numbers of soldiers entering the city.
The MNDAA and junta entered into China-brokered ceasefire negotiations on Jan. 18 in Yunnan province’s city of Kunming and agreed to retreat from Lashio within three months, they said.
MNDAA and junta representatives met with China’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs’ representative for Asia Deng Xijun at Two Elephants Hotel in Lashio to discuss the handover, residents said.
The junta has not released any information about the transition.
When asked about reports on the MNDAA’s withdrawal, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun neither confirmed nor denied it.
“China and Myanmar are friendly neighbors. China’s position on the Myanmar issue is very clear,” he said during a regular briefing on Tuesday.
“We follow the principle of non-interference in other countries’ internal affairs, support Myanmar in safeguarding independence, sovereignty, national unity and territorial integrity, support various parties in Myanmar in carrying out friendly consultation toward political reconciliation, and support Myanmar in resuming the political transition process.”
The MNDAA captured Lashio in August 2024 as part of Operation 1027, a joint mission with two other insurgent armies to capture land from the Myanmar military.
RFA’s attempts to contact the junta, MNDAA and Chinese Embassy of Myanmar went unanswered.
Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by Taejun Kang and Mike Firn.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.
An insurgent army in northern Myanmar publicly executed five convicted criminals, including a Chinese citizen, residents told Radio Free Asia on Friday.
The Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, or MNDAA, is one of Shan state’s largest ethnic organizations. It has been fighting for territory since a military junta took power in a 2021 coup, and has largely administered its own justice in the territory, occasionally publicly executing criminals.
“One Chinese and four Burmese were shot at the airport, all five were given the death sentence,” said a Lashio resident, declining to be named for security reasons. “Another Myanmar citizen was sentenced to life in prison and the other Chinese man was also given a life sentence.”
Another Myanmar citizen was sentenced to death, but his execution has been suspended for two years, the resident said.
The group was arrested in 2023 on charges of murder, rape, robbery and burglary, residents said. All are between 30 and 60 years old and from Lashio and Hsenwi in Shan state and Mandalay region’s Mogok town.
According to the MNDAA’s legal system, the public is invited to witness executions.
The MNDAA has not released any information on whether the accused were given lawyers. RFA contacted the MNDAA’s communications official for more information, but there was no response.
Amidst frequent clashes, airstrikes, an increase in crime and a shortage of qualified personnel, several ethnic insurgent organizations have struggled to conduct court proceedings during the ongoing civil war. In Lashio, persistent airstrikes and a declining economy have led to looting of local businesses and homes.
On Dec. 5, the MNDAA accused 14 people in Laukkaing town of criminal charges, including murder, executing six of them.
Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by Mike Firn and Stephen Wright.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.
China is placing army veterans as so-called “on-campus instructors” in schools across Tibet to impart military and political training to Tibetan children as young as 6, sources inside Tibet say, confirming state-run media reports about the new system.
The move is a bid to instill loyalty to the Chinese government from a young age -– an initiative that experts say highlight an escalation in Beijing’s assimilation policies aimed at erasing Tibetan identity.
State-run TV segments show Tibetan students marching in fatigues, raising the red Chinese flag and standing in formation while responding to commands from the instructors.
Other footage shows children diving under their desks for air raid drills and evacuating down stairs with notebooks held over their heads for protection against falling objects.
Military personnel are being deployed to schools in Lhasa, Chamdo, and Nagchu in the Tibet Autonomous Region, or TAR, Ngaba and Kyungchu counties in Sichuan province, Sangchu county in Gansu province as well as other regions in Qinghai province, the sources told RFA Tibetan.
There, they are tasked with providing “patriotic education” and preparing Tibetan children for future military service, the sources said.
Formerly an independent nation, Tibet was invaded and incorporated into China by force over 70 years ago. Ever since, Chinese authorities have maintained a tight grip on the region, restricting the Tibetan people’s peaceful expression of cultural and religious identity and use of the Tibetan language.
A Chinese military veteran posted as an “on-campus instructor” at a state-run middle school in Sernye District in Nagchu, Tibet Autonomous Region, leads a flag hoisting ceremony, March 18, 2025.(Chinese state media)
“It’s no longer just about China swapping out Tibetan language in textbooks for Mandarin, the first source told Radio Free Asia, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
“Now, they are sending military personnel and Chinese Communist Party cadres to schools across Tibet to provide ideological education to thoroughly change Tibetan children’s values, way of thinking, and overall mannerisms in order to build their loyalty to the party,” he said.
Instilling ‘correct values’ in children
In Nagchu, for example, 13 retired Han Chinese army veterans were installed as “on-campus instructors” at seven different schools, ranging from primary to middle school, to help instill “correct values” in children, local state-run media reported.
At least such two video reports showed that during such training periods, instructors blew whistles in the early mornings to wake up the children and instill army style culture in schools. TV footage also showed instructors dressed in fatigues inspecting bunk beds to see if the beds are made properly.
The new system seeks to “let national defense education take root from childhood” and to ready Tibetan children for future military service, in what authorities said creates a “new win-win situation for veterans’ services and youth ideological and political education,” state-run media reports said.
“Usually, the Chinese Ministry of Education creates a list of primary and secondary national defense education demonstration schools,” Anushka Saxena, a research analyst at Bengaluru, India-based Takshashila Institution, told Radio Free Asia.
“Such schools are those where the PLA feels it needs to inculcate a sense of unity” with the Communist Party’s cause, she said, referring to the People’s Liberation Army.
“Hence, schools in Tibet become an important target, given the need to assimilate and have younger generations feel a sense of loyalty to the country and the military,” she said.
Goal: Sinicization
Experts said the proliferation of uniformed military personnel in various local Tibetan primary and middle schools is a direct result of the recently amended National Defense Education Law, which was passed by the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, China’s top legislature, and came into effect in September 2024.
Under the amendments, branches of the People’s Liberation Army will be stationed in colleges, universities and high schools across the country to boost a nationwide program of approved military education and physical training to prepare young people for recruitment, state news agency Xinhua reported at the time.
“Together with other coercive means… this law is now being abused as an auxiliary tool to achieve the CCP’s – yet still elusive – goal of full Sinicization of Tibetans, by both militarizing and brainwashing the generation of young Tibetan who are coming of age in the current decade,” said Frank Lehberger, a Germany-based Sinologist and senior research fellow at Indian think tank Usanas Foundation, referring to the Chinese Communist Party.
But the “on-campus instructor” system is a first, experts say.
Chinese authorities chose Sernye district in Nagchu as the first pilot area in Tibet to implement the system, which they refer to as “…the innovative practice of integrating veterans’ management with school education.”
‘Reshaping children’s values and thought processes’
This, experts say, is in line with goals outlined in China’s government work report for 2025, in which Premier Li Qiang said the government will draw up and implement a three-year action plan to strengthen education by adopting “integrated reforms and new approaches” in the “political education curriculum at all levels, from elementary school to university.”
“These efforts at reshaping Tibetan children’s values and thought processes go beyond the classroom,” a second source from Tibet told RFA.
Retired military veterans who will be posted as “on-campus instructors” at seven schools in Sernye District in Nagchu, Tibet Autonomous Region, March 18, 2025.(Chinese state media)
“These party cadres with extensive military experience enter students’ dormitories even after school hours to enforce Han Chinese ideologies and teach their social norms and conducts,” he said. “This is aimed at deconstructing Tibetan children’s existing thought patterns and cultural practices, which they have learned from their parents and traditions.”
The closure of the two schools in July 2024 affected about 1600 students who were then forced to enrol in state-run boarding schools.
“I’ve received essays written anonymously by Tibetan teachers from inside Tibet who have expressed their frustration at seeing the complete changes in school curriculum with heavy propaganda messages. This includes showing soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army in a heroic light,” said Tsewang Dorji, Research Fellow at the Tibet Policy Institute.
The “on-campus instructors” in Tibetan schools serve multiple roles, including as national defense education counselors, behavioral norms instructors, and ideological and political lecturers, local Chinese state media reported.
Some of the training they provide and activities they lead in the schools, include Chinese flag-raising march, singing of military songs before meals, and provision of political and ideological education, with an emphasis on stories that glorify the ‘Chinese nation’ and service to it, reports said.
“The PLA finds relevance in cultivating soldiers from Tibet given Tibetan’s natural and habitual adjustment with climates of high altitude. When it comes to cultivating professionals capable of conducting mountain warfare against adversaries like India, Tibetans can be an important asset for the PLA,” Saxena said.
Chinese state media also celebrated the success of the pilot project in Nagchu, saying more than 300 Tibetan students have applied to be “future military service volunteers.”
Translated by Tenzin Norzom. Edited by Tenzin Pema and Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Tibetan.
One of Myanmar’s most powerful rebel armies will begin conscription for all residents over 18 years old, residents told Radio Free Asia on Thursday.
The Arakan Army, or AA, which controls the vast majority of western Myanmar’s Rakhine State, is organizing administrative processes in the state that would make conscription a legal obligation, a source close to the AA told RFA, adding that details would be released soon.
A resident from Mrauk-U township also confirmed that the AA was holding meetings in villages to discuss details about the conscription.
“Men between the ages of 18 and 45 will undergo two months of military training and be required to serve for two years,” the resident said, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
He added that women between the ages of 18 and 35 will also be required to serve.
No information has been released about what draftees will be required to do or whether they will serve in combat, raising concerns among civilians in the embattled region, which has witnessed brutal retaliation efforts from Myanmar’s junta.
The AA currently controls 14 of Rakhine state’s 17 townships.
RFA contacted AA spokesperson Khaing Thu Kha for more information, but he did not respond by the time of publication.
With a well-organized military structure and strong local support, the AA has established de facto governance in much of the region, collecting taxes and administering justice independently from the central government.
The junta views the AA as a persistent threat, as its growing influence undermines military control and fuels aspirations for greater autonomy among other ethnic groups.
Facing serious setbacks from insurgent groups across the country, reduced foreign investment, and defections from its own troops, the junta enacted controversial conscription laws in February last year, mandating compulsory military service for men aged 18 to 35 and women aged 18 to 27.
International human rights organizations have strongly criticized junta’s conscription law, arguing that it exacerbates the country’s existing humanitarian crisis and violates fundamental human rights.
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Myanmar, Tom Andrews, described the junta’s imposition of mandatory military service as a sign of its desperation and a further threat to civilians.
The enforcement of this law has led to a significant exodus of young people seeking to evade conscription. Reports indicate that thousands have fled across borders, particularly into Thailand, to avoid mandatory military service.
Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by Taejun Kang.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.
Fraud, waste, and abuse: That’s what inspectors general are tasked with investigating throughout the federal government. But in his first week in office, President Donald Trump did something unprecedented. He fired at least 17 IGs—more than any president in history—without notifying Congress or providing a substantive rationale for doing so, both of which are required by federal statute.
On this week’s episode of More To The Story, host Al Letson talks with one of those fired IGs, Larry Turner of the US Department of Labor, in his first full interview since being let go. Turner says the kind of fraud that Elon Musk’s DOGE says it has found within days isn’t actually possible to uncover as quickly as Musk claims. And he describes Trump’s effort to oust inspectors general like himself as a threat to democracy itself.
Producer: Josh Sanburn | Editor: Kara McGuirk-Allison | Theme music: Fernando Arruda and Jim Briggs | Production manager: Zulema Cobb | Digital producer: Nikki Frick | Interim executive producers: Taki Telonidis and Brett Myers | Host: Al Letson
Myanmar’s military has launched air and artillery strikes as it tries to clear pro-democracy fighters from the vicinity of a major north-south road and nearly 20,000 villagers have fled from their homes to escape the violence, an insurgent fighter told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday.
The army has been targeting more than 20 villages along the road in the Kanbalu township of the central Sagaing region since late February, they said. The road links Myanmar’s second largest city of Mandalay with Myitkyina city in the north.
“The battles are intensifying. The junta is conducting so many offensives,” said a member of a rebel militia, or People’s Defense Force, in the area.
The fighter, who declined to be identified for safety reasons, said recent fighting had been particularly heavy near Hnget Pyaw Taing village.
“The people from evacuated villages need to run … they are now attacking with drones,” he said.
RFA tried to contact Sagaing region’s junta spokesperson, Nyunt Win Aung, for information but he did not respond by the time of publication.
The junta that seized power in an early 2021 coup faced major setbacks last year, losing ground in different parts of the country to PDFs and their ethnic minority insurgent allies.
The army now controls about half the country, security analysts say, but it has been trying to regain lost ground during the current dry season.
Clashes have been particularly heavy in central areas, like Sagaing, where members of the majority Burman community have for the first time taken up arms in a bid to end military rule.
The United Nations says about 3.5 million people have been displaced by both fighting and a natural disaster and the country is facing a humanitarian crisis, with widespread hunger looming.
People displaced in the fighting in Kanbalu had to deal with a lack of water, the PDF member said.
“Because now it’s the dry season and water is scarce, it’s difficult for people to flee,” he said.
Junta forces also torched 250 houses at a major intersection near Hnget Pyaw Taing village late last week and into this week, he said.
The anti-junta fighter said 21 members of the military’s Battalion 361 had been killed and 57 wounded while only five members of the PDF were wounded.
RFA could not independently verify the casualties.
Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.
The rebel Arakan Army is closing in on Sittwe, the capital of Myanmar’s western Rakhine state, firing artillery on military junta outposts outside the city and preparing for an assault, residents told Radio Free Asia.
Residents have been fleeing from Sittwe’s outskirts since January, but now aren’t able to escape because junta forces have blocked all exit routes, said Wai Hin Aung, an aid worker in the city. “The blockade has led to this fighting, with the use of heavy weapons,” he said.
The rebel ethnic Arakan Army, or AA, has made significant gains over the past year in its bid to root the military out of Rakhine state in its bid for self-determination.
Of the 17 townships in Rakhine state, 14 are under the control of the AA, leaving only three still in the hands of the military junta – Kyaukphyu, Munaung and Sittwe, where the junta’s regional headquarters is based.
Sittwe is crucial for the junta – which seized control of Myanmar in a 2021 coup d’état – not only as a source of much-needed revenue and foreign currency, but also for its role in Myanmar’s oil and gas trade via the Indian Ocean.
If Sittwe falls, it would be the latest and one of the most significant defeats for the junta, which has been pushed back across the country by various ethnic armies and armed citizens who have formed militias called Peoples Defense Forces, or PDF.
Junta forces have countered with artillery attacks and airstrikes on areas in Sittwe and two nearby towns where they believe that AA troops are stationed, a resident said, speaking anonymously for security reasons.
Firing on naval vessels
The Arakan Army also fired on junta vessels at a river naval base, a Sittwe resident told Radio Free Asia.
The AA began firing at around 5 p.m., and junta fighter planes responded by dropping bombs on AA positions at about 9 p.m., he said. Several junta soldiers were wounded in the AA attack and were taken to a Sittwe hospital.
“The explosions were quite strong,” he said. “The junta dropped about three big bombs. Then they started firing with a series of missiles.”
A Myanmar junta armored vehicle burns after Arakan Army forces attacked a column that left Sittwe in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state, Feb. 28, 2024.(Image from AA Info Desk video/Arakan Army Info Desk)
The junta has recently reinforced its forces in and around Sittwe, and has also provided military training to thousands of Rohingya – a stateless ethnic group that predominantly follows Islam and resides in Rakhine.
A Sittwe resident and military analyst from Rakhine state told RFA that neither the AA nor the military junta will easily abandon Sittwe.
“The AA is unlikely to halt its attacks on Sittwe, and the military will not abandon the city,” he said. “That’s why intense fighting cannot be ruled out.”
Rakhine State’s junta spokesperson, Hla Thein, didn’t answer his telephone when RFA tried to contact him for comment about the situation in Sittwe.
AA spokesperson Khaing Thukha also didn’t immediately respond to a message left by RFA.
Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.
TAIPEI, Taiwan – A Taiwanese court jailed a former army officer for 13 years for attempting to recruit an active-duty military pilot to defect to China with a helicopter, the latest in a series of national security cases involving retired military and law enforcement personnel.
The government of the democratic island accuses China of systematically cultivating retired military and police officers. It said in January that 85% of national security cases were linked to retired officers.
Former Taiwanese military officer Hsiao Hsiang-Yun was found guilty of attempting to persuade a military pilot to defect to China with a helicopter. He was also found guilty of coercing soldiers to film propaganda videos for China.
“The convicted individuals were found guilty of violating Taiwan’s National Security Act, Anti-Corruption Act, and Criminal Code of the Armed Forces,” the judge said in the Feb. 13 ruling.
According to the ruling, the Chinese Communist Party, or CCP, worked with Hsiao to orchestrate the defection of Lt. Col. Hsieh Meng-Shu, who was encouraged to fly a CH-47 Chinook military helicopter to China. Hsieh drew up a plan to defect but was caught before he could carry it out.
Hsaio and Hsieh received bribes of 620,000 New Taiwan dollars (US$19,500) and 600,000 New Taiwan dollars (US$18,900), respectively, according to the court.
Ho Cheng-Hui, the deputy secretary-general of Taiwan National Security Institute, said that the CPP was using a psychological warfare tactic by targeting the officer corps, with a view to subverting Taiwan’s military.
“Piloting a military aircraft is quite challenging. The Taiwan Strait is roughly over 200 kilometers wide, and evading Taiwan’s air defense system requires low-altitude, sea-skimming flight, which reduces speed and makes maneuvering more difficult,” Ho told Radio Free Asia.
“The primary goal of the PLA in doing this is to undermine the psychological resilience of Taiwan’s military,” said Ho referring to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.
Ho noted that this case showed Taiwan’s military personnel were at high risk of being targeted by Chinese infiltration and psychological warfare.
“It is crucial to focus on improving military welfare, fostering a sense of honor, and ensuring related personnel’s isolation from encounters with sensitive or suspicious individuals,” he said, stressing that early warning measures such as exposing individuals, groups, or organizations linked to China would be crucial.
“Regulations must be put in place to safeguard military personnel and prevent their exposure to Chinese infiltration.”
Taiwan’s national security focus is on threats like espionage and interference from China, which considers the island a breakaway province that must be reunified, by force if necessary. Taiwan has governed itself since 1949.
In January, Liang Wen-chieh, spokesperson of Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, which oversees relations across the Taiwan Strait, said the island’s government was “very concerned” that 85% of national security cases were linked to retired military and police.
China had been “systematically and methodically cultivating” such people, he said.
The number of people in Taiwan prosecuted for Chinese espionage increased from 16 in 2021 to 64 in 2024, Taiwan’s main intelligence agency, the National Security Bureau, or NSB, said in a report this month.
In 2024, 15 military veterans and 28 active service members were prosecuted, accounting for 23% and 43%, respectively, of all Chinese espionage cases.
Edited by Taejun Kang.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Alan Lu for RFA.
More than 1,000 civilians have fled Rakhine state’s capital Sittwe and nearby areas in western Myanmar, fearing heavy artillery attacks as tensions rise between junta forces and the Arakan Army, an ethnic armed group that has advanced on junta positions, residents said Friday.
Ongoing exchanges of fire between junta soldiers and the Arakan Army, or AA, in nearby villages, have prompted residents to seek safe havens out of concern that they might be hit by bombs, sniper fire, drone strikes or air strikes, should the conflict escalate.
Of the 17 townships in Rakhine state, 14 are under the control of the AA, leaving only three — Sittwe, the military council’s regional headquarters, Kyaukphyu and Munaung — still in the hands of the military junta.
A Myanmar junta armored vehicle burns after Arakan Army forces attacked a column that left Sittwe in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state, Feb. 28, 2024.(Arakan Army Info Desk)
Observers believe that the AA soon could launch an offensive against Sittwe.
And because of this, civilians say they fear getting trapped in the crossfire of heavy artillery used by junta battalions based in Sittwe if the AA strikes.
Sittwe is crucial for the junta — which seized control of Myanmar in a 2021 coup d’état— not only as a source of much-needed revenue and foreign currency, but also for its role in Myanmar’s oil and gas trade via the Indian Ocean.
Besides Sittwe, people in Rathedaung, Pauktaw and Ponnagyun —townships close to Sittwe — are also leaving their homes out of fear of direct attacks, said a Rathedaung resident who spoke on condition of anonymity for safety reasons.
An aerial view of Sittwe township in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state, May 15, 2023.(AP)
“Some already fled from Sittwe township, but now they find themselves forced to flee again, adding to their hardships,” the person said. “Many are struggling due to a lack of warm clothing for winter and severe shortages of basic necessities after being displaced.”
Junta fortifies positions
The junta’s blockade of transportation routes in Rakhine state, which has made travel for displaced civilians difficult, has compounded the situation, they said.
Sittwe residents told RFA that the AA has surrounded the city with a large number of troops while the military junta has fortified its positions, increasing its military presence with battalions outside the city, in areas of Sittwe, and at Sittwe University, in preparation for a defensive stand.
Additionally, thousands of Rohingya — a stateless ethnic group that predominantly follows Islam and resides in Rakhine state — have been given military training by the junta, sources said.
“The army is shooting; the navy is also shooting,” said a Sittwe resident. “People are afraid. They don’t know when the fighting will start.”
AA’s heavy artillery
The AA has already fired heavy artillery and used snipers. Local news reports on Jan. 27 indicated that daily exchanges of fire were occurring between the ethnic army and junta forces, including the use of attack drones.
Civilians displaced by armed conflict flee Sittwe, capital of western Myanmar’s Rakhine state, Jan. 29, 2025.(Wai Hun Aung)
Attempts by RFA to contact both AA spokesperson Khaing Thu Kha and junta spokesperson and Rakhine state attorney general Hla Thein for comment on the issue went unanswered by the time of publishing.
Human rights advocate Myat Tun said he believes the AA will resort to military action in Sittwe if political negotiations fail.
“The situation in Sittwe is escalating,” he said. “The AA is preparing to take military action if political solutions are not reached.”
Translated by Aung Naing for RFA Burmese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Myanmar.
Part of a three-story series to mark the fourth anniversary of Myanmar’s 2021 coup, looking at how the military treats its own soldiers.
Thirty-year-old Aung Aung was arrested at gunpoint on a July morning as he left his house in central Myanmar – one of about 30 people rounded up and taken into custody in his town that day. Their crime? Being the right age to be enlisted in the struggling ranks of the Myanmar army.
Less than a month later, during a monsoon downpour, he and 10 others fled No. 7 Basic Military Training Center in Taungdwingyi township, about 70 miles from his home in Yenangchaung in Magwe region. They were clothed in little more than their underwear and were drenched in the heavy rain.
They spent two nights in the forest and had to avoid military checkpoints as they fled northward, relying on local people to provide them food, money, clothing – and directions – until they reached safety three days later.
“The journey was extremely difficult, unlike anything I had ever experienced,” Aung Aung told RFA Burmese. He requested his name be withheld as he remains at large from the military. The punishment for avoiding conscription is up to five years in prison; those who abscond from the military after enlistment could face the death penalty.
New junta recruits at No. 7 Basic Military Training Center in Taungdwingyi, on May 13, 2024. This is the same training center where Aung Aung and Zaw Zaw fled in July 2024.(Myanmar Ministry of Information)
It’s not an unusual story in Myanmar. Since the ruling junta declared national conscription in early 2024 for men aged 18-35 and women aged 18-27, growing numbers of men are being forced into the army.
The military’s ranks have been depleted in the civil war that has ensued since army chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing launched a coup four years ago against an elected government. The recruits to fill the ranks typically come from poor families that are unable to pay off officials to avoid conscription.
Reported forced conscriptions are tracked on the Unlawful Conscription Watch website.(Ministry of Human Rights, National Unity Government)
But the problem actually pre-dates the conscription law.
Killed in action
In November, the relatives of Min Khant Kyaw, 23, got a call out of the blue from authorities that he’d been killed in action. He’d been missing for three years, and it was the first they’d learned that he was in the Myanmar army.
Authorities offered little information. No details about how, when and where Min Khant Kyaw, who had been living in Yangon, died. They were just told that he was dead and the army would provide his next-of-kin with some benefits. It was only because his national registration card was found in his shirt pocket that authorities were able to contact next-of-kin in his native village.
His uncle, Lu Maw, recounts the story with sadness and anger. He had raised Min Khant Kyaw since age 7 after he was orphaned during the massive Cyclone Nargis in 2008 that devastated the Ayeyarwady delta and claimed the lives of his parents and three siblings.
Lu Maw is convinced that his nephew was forced to enlist.
“None of us, no one in our family, knew he had joined the army,” he told RFA Burmese.
“After asking all his relatives, we concluded he didn’t join the army of his own will. If he did, his relatives and everyone close to him would have known. We all knew nothing, but the authorities just informed us he died on the frontline,” Lu Maw said.
“I would not complain if Min Khant Kyaw had joined the army on his own account, but it was not like that. He was dragged into it.”
The junta’s Chief Minister of the Ayeyarwady region, Tin Maung Win, center, inspects new recruits in Pathein, on June 29, 2024.(Myanmar Ministry of Information)
The Myanmar military has a record of duping recruits and of forced recruitment. The International Labor Organization reported the practice in the 1990s, a time when the military was in the ascendant and was seeking to boost its ranks.
Its need for recruits has become far more acute since the 2021 coup. The ruling junta has suffered mounting losses on the battlefield and has lost control of most of the country.
In an analysis last year, Myanmar expert Ye Myo Hein estimated that by late 2023, it had about 130,000 military personnel – about half of them frontline troops – compared with earlier estimates of between 300,000-400,000. Anecdotal evidence suggests battalions are at a fraction of regular fighting strength.
In February 2024, when the junta enacted a compulsory conscription law that took effect in April, chief junta spokesman, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, indicated that about 50,000 people would be recruited by year’s end. He said women would only be drafted starting in 2025, which has now begun.
There’s no reliable count of how many have been drafted so far. What is clear is that conscription has accelerated the exodus of able-bodied people from Myanmar. It’s also fueled a cottage industry of graft where families pay administrators the equivalent of hundreds, even thousands, of dollars to avoid the draft.
Even more sinister is that people are being snatched off the street both in cities and rural areas, multiple sources say.
Data collected by RFA showed a spike in youth arrests in Yangon, Mandalay, Naypyitaw and Bago in December. The spike appeared connected to clandestine operations at night, which residents described as “snatch and recruit,” by men wearing plain clothes and driving private vehicles. RFA reporting indicated 250 people were caught in the dragnet in those four cities in a single month.
Zaw Zaw, 27, lives outside the big city. He’s from Salay town in Magwe region. He told RFA Burmese that he was caught in a night raid on his home in early July. He was taken to the local police station before being sent for a medical at another town in the region, Chauk.
“Even those who were mentally unfit passed the test, as it seemed they accepted everyone regardless of their condition,” said Zaw Zaw – not his real name as he wanted to protect his identity.
“When I arrived at the training center, they confiscated everything my family had given me: clothes, watches, phones and money.”
Like Aung Aung, he was at No. 7 Basic Military Training Center in Taungdwingyi, and was among the group that escaped, heading toward an area controlled by an anti-junta People’s Defense Force.
This image released by the Arakan Army shows the battle for Maungdaw town, Rakhine state, on August 30, 2024.(AA Info Desk)
No option but to enlist
Forcible recruitment takes different forms. Not all are snatched off the streets. Others are simply presented with little option but to enlist.
Moe Pa Pa, a mother of three living in Kungyangon township in Yangon region, says her missing husband, Ye Lin Aung, 29, signed up because he couldn’t afford to bribe his way out of conscription.
“He said that if he did not go this time, the ward administrator would force him again and again. I told him not to go, he should stay and work here so at least we wouldn’t run out of food. I strongly discouraged him, but he went anyway.” she said.
She last saw him, for a 15-minute conversation, just before he was shipped out to the front line in Rakhine state, where junta forces have taken a battering from the rebel Arakan Army.
“The ward administrator told my husband he would pay us 500,000 kyats ($110) up front. He also promised to pay 310,000 kyats per month while my husband was undergoing three months of training, with payments to be made monthly,” Moe Pa Pa told RFA.
All she’s seen is the bonus, no salary.
“He called me two or three times after arriving at the front line in Buthidaung and Maungdaw,” Moe Pa Pa, referring to two battle zones in Rakhine state. “He said he would transfer his salary, but since then, I have been unable to contact him. He never sent his payment, and we have been out of contact ever since.”
She suspects he’s dead. Phone calls made from the Rakhine front line stopped six months ago.
Other RFA Burmese journalists contributed reporting. Edited by Ginny Stein and Mat Pennington.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Aye Aye Mon for RFA Burmese.
Part of a three-story series to mark the fourth anniversary of Myanmar’s 2021 coup, looking at how the military treats its own soldiers.
Min Din didn’t want to be a soldier. He joined the Myanmar military 33 years ago, seeking a steady income for his wife and his newly born son. Seven months ago, that long career came to a bloody end. The 57-year-old army sergeant was felled by a rocket fire in a rebel assault on a besieged military base in Shan state. His body was buried nearby.
Far from enjoying financial security, his wife Hla Khin is now a widow without income. She’s still waiting for a payout from his military pension.
Min Din’s grown-up son, Yan Naing Tun, who has fled Myanmar to escape military conscription, is bitter about the leaders who ordered his father into battle in the first place.
“Old soldiers like my father fought and sacrificed their lives, but their deaths did not benefit the people,” Yan Naing Tun told RFA, his eyes sharp and full of pain. “My father’s death was not worth it; he gave his life protecting the wealth of the dictators.”
Smoke rises from Paung Hle Kone village in Khin-U township, which was burned down by junta troops, on Nov. 19, 2022.(Citizen photo)
Four years after the coup against a democratic government that plunged Myanmar into civil war, the military has inflicted terrible suffering on civilians. Torching of villages, indiscriminate air strikes and stomach-churning atrocities have become commonplace. Even the military’s own rank and file are paying a price.
This is a story about two veteran soldiers of the Tatmadaw, as the military is known inside Myanmar, whose bereaved families spoke to RFA Burmese about how they’ve struggled to survive after the soldiers’ deaths in combat after more than 30 years of service. All their names have been changed at their request and for their safety.
While reviled by many for its long record of human rights abuses, the Tatmadaw remains the most powerful institution in the country – and one that has traditionally offered a career path for both the officer class and village recruits.
But any appeal that a military career once had has been eroded – not just through its reputation for corruption and atrocities, but by setbacks on the battlefield. By some estimates, it now controls less than half of a country it has long ruled with an iron fist. Its casualties from fighting with myriad rebel groups likely runs into the tens of thousands.
Junta soldiers search for protesters demonstrating against the coup in Yangon on May 7, 2021.(AFP)
There are growing signs it can’t look after its own.
Aung Pyay Sone, the son of Myanmar’s military leader Min Aung Hlaing, has been accused of running a predatory life insurance scheme in which all soldiers make contributions. They are also obliged to make monthly contributions to a sprawling military conglomerate known as Myanmar Economic Holdings. According to families, the life insurance scheme is no longer paying out on the death of a soldier. Families also struggle to get pension payments they are due.
A way to support a family
Another recent Tatmadaw fatality, Ko Lay, signed up for the army during what might be considered as its oppressive heyday in the early 1990s when the military was in the ascendant against ethnic insurgencies and expanding its business interests.
He enlisted soon after the country’s first multi-party democratic election. The pro-military party lost by a landslide, but the ruling junta refused to hand over power – leaving the winning party’s leader Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest. (That’s a situation similar to now. Suu Kyi, who had led the now-ousted civilian government for five years, has been imprisoned at an undisclosed location since the 2021 coup).
Against this backdrop of democracy suppressed and the military in control, Ko Lay enlisted aged 20. He was a villager from central Myanmar’s Bago region, who had dropped out of school because his parents could not pay the fees.
His wife maintains that joining up was never a political decision. The military offered a pathway to employment and a way to support a family.
“My husband was uneducated,” his wife Mya May told RFA. “He didn’t even pass the fourth grade. His parents did not remember when he was born. When he joined the army, one of the officers looked at him and estimated his birth date and the year and enlisted him.”
Ko Lay only married in his 40s, but once he did his family moved with him every time he was transferred, which is customary. But after the 2021 coup, with fighting intensifying as people across Myanmar took up arms against the junta, they sent their 10-year-old son to live with relatives near Yangon.
At the start of 2024, with rebel forces in northeastern Myanmar gaining in strength, Ko Lay was deployed with Infantry Battalion No. 501 in Kyaukme, in northern Shan State. Mya May and her 89-year-old father Ba Maung followed him.
Under fire
In February, villagers were starting to flee the area as a military showdown beckoned. Ko Lay’s battalion was meant to be strengthened for this fight, but in reality, it numbered fewer than 200 troops, less than a third of full strength. By late June, the combined forces of the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and a People’s Defense Force unit from the Mandalay region were closing in.
Sgt. Ko Lay at the front line in northeast Shan State in 2024 before he was killed by resistance sniper fire.(Courtesy of Mya May)
Mya May said that Ko Lay was stationed on the outer perimeter of the military camp at Kyaukme. Inside the camp, Mya May, along with other wives, were put to work loading and carrying ammunition.
“My husband was stationed on the outer perimeter near a monastery. Resistance forces used the monastery as a strategic position, drilling holes into the brick walls to fire guns and launching missiles from above,” she said.
As the attack intensified, frontline soldiers, including Ko Lay, retreated into the camp. Snipers began picking them off. At 7:30 a.m. on June 27, Sgt. Ko Lay was killed by sniper fire.
Mya May never retrieved his body. She believes he was buried at a rifle range.
She and her father were now under fire themselves. As they sheltered in a building inside the base, rebel rocket fire hit the building and showered glass over them. They fled during a lull in the fighting in vehicles organized by the military that transported them and other families to another military base.
The remaining soldiers were left to fight. Within a month, their commander would be dead, and almost the entire battalion wiped out.
Struggling to get by
Mya May, her 10-year-old son, and Ba Maung are now living near Yangon with relatives. She still feels deep sorrow that she was not able to bury her husband or be with him in his final moments.
She’s also struggling to make ends meet.
It took Mya May three months to receive her husband’s pension. She now gets a monthly stipend of 174,840 kyats (about $40), with an additional 19,200 kyats ($4.30) per month for her son – which is scarcely enough to survive in Myanmar’s stricken economy. But because her husband died on the frontline, she received an additional one-off payment of 13,166,500 kyats ($3,006).
The child benefit of 19,200 Myanmar kyat ($4.30) per month for Sgt. Ko Lay’s child.(Courtesy of Mya May)
This frontline death payment was a much-touted inducement offered prior to the 2021 coup aimed at encouraging young men from poor families to sign up.
Her father, Ba Maung laments their situation after Ko Lay’s death.
“Seeing my daughter in trouble, having lost her husband and all her belongings, is deeply disappointing,” the 89-year-old said. “When she got married, she promised to support me. She is very clever. But now I can’t help her, and it fills me with great sadness.”
They’ve also been short-changed by the life insurance scheme that Ko Lay bought. For the past five years, the sergeant had paid 8,332 kyats (almost $2) a month for a policy aimed at providing for his family in the event of his death. Four months after her husband’s death, Mya May has received exactly the same amount that had been taken from her husband’s wages. Not a kyat more.
Dying in a war zone
The widow of the other fallen military veteran mentioned in this story, Min Din, who served in the same battalion as Ko Lay and also died in June, has fared even worse.
His wife Hla Khin learned from a soldier in his company that Min Din was killed in a direct hit on the battalion headquarters by a short-range rocket. He was buried near the central gate of the base.
“Due to the dire situation in Kyaukme, we couldn’t travel there to see him or pay our respects,” Hla Khin said, adding that the best they could do was to offer alms to monks and donate 100,000 kyats to a monastery in his honor.
Her attempts to secure a military pension or any payment has so far been unsuccessful.
Applications are meant to be made in person where the soldier last served, which is no easy matter in a war zone.
“There was nobody in Battalion 501 as many people died. Almost all documents have been lost as some office staff moved out, some died and some are still missing,” she said.
Unable to secure her husband Min Din’s military pension, Hla Khin lives in her parents’ house in Ayeyarwady region.(Courtesy Min Din’s family)
But Hla Khin, now living in her elderly parents’ house in Ayeyarwady region, said that now the necessary paperwork has been submitted. She sent a formal letter to the commander of another battalion where some of the soldiers and families have relocated. She’s waiting for a response.
Her plight is compounded by the knowledge that her husband had been desperate to retire from the military for years before his death. Months before the 2021 coup, Min Din, then aged 54, had made that request because of high blood pressure and a heart condition. He went to the army hospital at the cantonment city of Pyin Oo Lwin but was told he would have to wait until he was aged 61 to retire.
Instead, he ended up deployed on the frontline of the junta’s fight against the rebels – first at Laukkaing, a strategic town on the border with China, where junta forces surrendered under a white flag. After that humiliation, Min Din requested discharge again, and again was denied. He was then redeployed to Kyaukme, where he died.
Holding onto hope
Min Din’s eldest son, Yan Naing Tun, 33, said he is filled with overwhelming sadness. He remembers his father as kind and someone who deeply cared for his children. The family often lacked food, and he recounted his father once donating his own blood to earn some kyats to buy food and cook for them.
Residents cross a river in Kayah State along the Thai-Myanmar border as they flee fighting between the Myanmar junta and the Karen National Union (KNU) on Dec. 25, 2021.(AFP)
Like many of his young countrymen, Yan Naing Tun has voted with his feet, fleeing Myanmar for Thailand to avoid the draft and fighting for the “dictators” he says are only interested in protecting their wealth.
“There are countless young people fleeing the country, many sacrificing their lives, and countless others enduring great suffering. Our shared hope is for an end to the fighting and the arrival of peace. I am one of the young people holding onto this hope,” he told RFA.
Edited by Mat Pennington.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Aye Aye Mon for RFA Burmese.
An ethnic minority insurgent force that has captured most of western Myanmar’s Rakhine state has seized a military base on a main road into central heartland areas, the group said, raising the prospect of a rebel push into the Irrawaddy River valley.
The Arakan Army, or AA, has made significant gains over the past year in its bid to force the Myanmar military out of Rakhine state and take it over, capturing 14 of the state’s 17 townships, and probing into southern and central areas of Myanmar dominated by the majority Bamar community.
AA forces seized a military base at a pass on the main raid between the town of Toungup, which they hold near the coast, over mountains and down to the Bago region in the central plains.
“The AA completely captured the junta’s Mo Hti Taung camp on the border between Rakhine state and Bago division,” the AA said in a statement late on Monday.
The AA launched their bid to capture the camp, which is 180 kilometers, or 112 miles, southwest of the capital, Naypyidaw, on Jan. 21. They found abandoned ammunition, other military equipment and the bodies of junta soldiers, the group said, without giving details of casualties on either side.
The main spokesperson for the junta that seized power nearly five years ago, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Htun, did not respond to calls by RFA seeking comment.
Junta forces were launching counter-attacks from the east, the AA said.
The AA did not say how the capture of the camp might fit into its military planning but one analyst said the group might be aiming to make a push east, down to the populated lowland, where the main north-south roads, railway lines and river transport links run, and on towards Naypyidaw.
“We must consider the possibility that they are coming to dominate along the Naypyidaw highway,” said political analyst Than Soe Naing.
“A situation where Naypyidaw can be surrounded is being created,” he said. “Similar to the military aims of other revolutionary forces, the conquest of Naypyidaw in the rainy season is possible.”
The camp at the pass on a main road from central areas to Rakhine state would also be an important defensive position for the AA if it wanted to block the military from advancing into Rakhine state from the east.
Than Soe Naing said the AA was also launching guerrilla attacks from the south of Rakine state into the Ayeyarwady region, and into the Magway region to the north.
AA troops on the Ayeyarwady region’s border with Rakhine state, in photograph released on Jan. 27, 2025.(AA Info Desk)
The AA captured the Gwa town in the south of Rakhine state in late December and the military was launching heavy air and artillery strikes from the Ayeyarwady border to try to take it back, residents of the area said.
Similarly to the north, fighting is taking place on the main road east from Ann town, which the AA took in early December, through the mountains to Pa Dan, in Ngape township, residents said.
AA soldiers at a ‘Welcome to Magway’ sign in a photograph released on Jan. 27, 2025.(AA Info Desk)
Battles are also being fought daily around the Rakhine state capital of Sittwe, one of the few places left under junta administration, residents said.
The other main area under junta control in the state is the Kyaukpyu economic zone on the coast, where China aims to build a deep-sea port, and has energy facilities including natural gas and oil pipelines running to southern China.
Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.
Ethnic Rakhine rebels on Friday confirmed the torture and execution of two prisoners of war from Myanmar’s military after video clips of the killings went viral online.
The videos have prompted an NGO to call on the International Criminal Court to launch an investigation into the incident.
While RFA has obtained several videos of junta troops torturing and killing enemy combatants in the nearly four years since the military seized power in a February 2021 coup d’etat, opposition forces have largely claimed to adhere to the rules of war with regards to the treatment of POWs.
A leaked two-minute video clip recently generated a buzz on social media in Myanmar that shows around seven men — some of whom are wearing Arakan Army, or AA, uniforms — kicking and beating two shirtless men who are lying on the ground.
Another video showed their brutal killing.
On Friday, AA spokesperson Khaing Thu Kha confirmed that the videos showed his group’s soldiers torturing and executing two junta POWs in Rakhine state’s Kyauktaw township on Feb. 7, 2024, during an offensive against Military Operations Command No. 9.
Speaking at a press conference, he said that the AA soldiers “were unable to control their anger” and committed the crimes in retaliation for junta troops arresting, torturing and killing their family members.
The AA’s admission came a day after Southeast Asia-based NGO Fortify Rights called on the International Criminal Court, based in The Hague, Netherlands, to investigate reports of AA soldiers committing atrocities in Rakhine state, specifically mentioning the two video clips that went viral.
Sources with knowledge of the incident told RFA Burmese that it occurred in the mountains near Kyauktaw Mountain Pagoda during the February 2024 AA offensive.
The two junta soldiers were reportedly captured while fleeing from a battalion at Military Operations Command No. 9, said the sources, who spoke to RFA on condition of anonymity due to security concerns.
They said that the two men were killed while being taken to a location where other POWs were held, and claimed that the perpetrators included AA soldiers, AA militiamen, and members of the anti-junta People’s Defense Force, or PDF.
The incident followed a junta artillery barrage into Kyauktaw’s Kan Sauk village that had killed residents, including relatives of the AA soldiers, the sources said.
They said two men involved in the killing recorded the videos, one of whom shared the clips with residents after returning to Kan Sauk village. A villager sent the clips to a family member working in Malaysia, who posted them to Facebook, where they went viral.
Telecommunications and internet access have been cut in Rakhine state since late 2023, when the AA ended a ceasefire that had been in place since the coup, and RFA was unable to independently verify the social media accounts.
Attempts by RFA to contact the AA’s Khaing Thu Kha for comment on the killings went unanswered Friday.
Calls for accountability
Ejaz Min Khant, human rights associate at Fortify Rights, told RFA that the torture and execution of civilians or captured enemy soldiers are considered “war crimes.”
“It is crucial to take action against those involved in extrajudicial killings,” he said. “We welcome [that] the AA has acknowledged this and stated they have taken action.”
However, according to Fortify Rights, Khaing Thu Kha’s claim that the killings were retaliation for the deaths of AA family members contradicts what can be heard in the video, where the perpetrators said their commander had ordered them to kill the two POWs.
“If they were ordered to do so, who are their senior officers? What are their ranks? What specific actions have been taken?” Ejaz asked. “This must be clarified transparently.”
He said his group will urge the AA to cooperate with international judicial bodies to conduct an investigation into the incident and plans to monitor and document the army’s actions to prevent similar human rights violations.
The torture and executions drew additional condemnation from Salai William Chin, the general secretary of the Chin National Organization/Chin National Defense Force, another ethnic army battling the military in Chin state, in the northwest.
“It is absolutely unacceptable,” he said, adding that all anti-junta groups must work together to prevent such incidents.
“In the future, as armed opposition groups throughout the country wage war to capture junta camps and towns under junta control, we have to be mindful that this kind of incident should not occur again when we take POWs,” he said. “It is crucial that senior commanders don’t act like [leaders of] the terrorist military junta.”
Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.
TAIPEI, Taiwan – Taiwan said 85% of its national security cases were found to involve retired military and police officers, saying China “systematically and organically cultivated” these forces in the island.
Taiwan’s national security law is a set of legal provisions aimed at safeguarding its sovereignty and democratic system from internal and external threats. It includes measures against espionage, subversion, and activities threatening national security, with a particular focus on countering external interference, including from China.
China regards Taiwan as a renegade province that should be reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary. The democratic island has been self-governing since it effectively separated from mainland China in 1949 after the Chinese civil war.
“85% of current incidents related to national security are involved with retired military and police. We are very concerned about this situation,” said Liang Wen-chieh, spokesperson of Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, which oversees relations across the Taiwan Strait.
“China has been systematically and methodically cultivating these forces on the ground in Taiwan … it has become very difficult to secure evidence in espionage and national security-related cases,” Liang added without elaborating.
The number of individuals in Taiwan prosecuted for Chinese espionage increased from 16 in 2021 to 64 in 2024, Taiwan’s main intelligence agency, the National Security Bureau, or NSB, said in a report this month.
In 2024, 15 military veterans and 28 active service members were prosecuted, accounting for 23% and 43%, respectively, of all Chinese espionage cases.
“Chinese operatives frequently try to use retired military personnel to recruit active service members, establish networks via the internet, or try to lure targets with cash or by exploiting their debts,” said the NSB.
“For example, military personnel with financial difficulties may be offered loans via online platforms or underground banks, in return for passing along secret intelligence, signing loyalty pledges or recruiting others,” the agency added.
The Taiwan government’s announcement on national security cases came days after Taiwanese prosecutors sought a 10-year prison sentence for a retired military officer for leaking classified information to China.
The Taiwan High Prosecutors Office on Monday indicted retired Lt Gen. Kao An-kuo and five others for violating the National Security Act and organizing a pro-China group.
Prosecutors claim that Kao, leader of the pro-unification group “Republic of China Taiwan Military Government,” along with his girlfriend, identified by her surname Liu, and four others, were recruited by China’s People’s Liberation Army, or PLA.
The group allegedly worked to establish an organization that would serve as armed internal support and operational bases for the Chinese Communist Party, or CCP, in the event of a PLA invasion of Taiwan. This effort reportedly included recruiting active-duty military personnel to obtain classified information and monitor strategic deployments.
Additionally, they are accused of using drones to simulate surveillance on mobile military radar vehicles and other combat exercises, subsequently relaying the results to the CCP.
China has not commented on Taiwan’s announcement on national security cases.
Edited by Mike Firn.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Taejun Kang for RFA.
Washington, D.C., January 22, 2025—Prominent Sudanese journalist Yahya Hamad Fadlallah has died in a hospital, one month after Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) arrested him and his son at their home in the capital Khartoum on December 11, according to newsreports.
Fadlallah was tortured by the army, falsely accused of collaborating with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), and denied medical treatment for his diabetes, the Darfur Bar Association said, citing unnamed sources close to Fadlallah. The local trade union Sudanese Journalists Syndicate (SJS) made the same allegations. CPJ was unable to independently verify the allegations.
Fadlallah died on January 13 in Al Nou Hospital in Omdurman, in Khartoum State, where he was taken after being released from detention on January 10 due to poor health, according to the SJS and a journalist familiar with the case who spoke with CPJ on condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal.
“We are deeply shocked by the death of Sudanese journalist Yahya Hamad Fadlallah after his recent arrest by the Sudanese Armed Forces and concerned about the allegations of mistreatment and denial of medical care,” said CPJ Interim MENA Program Coordinator Yeganeh Rezaian. “Sudanese authorities must immediately conduct a transparent investigation into Fadlallah’s death and hold those responsible accountable. Sudanese journalists must be protected, particularly during times of war when access to independent news reports is critical.”
Fadlallah, 65, was a well-known freelance columnist and novelist who also worked with the local television channel Blue Nile TV and the governmental General Authority for Radio and Television.
Numerous journalists have been arrested and killed in Sudan as they have struggled to continue reporting after war broke out between the SAF and the RSF in April 2023, sparking a famine and forcing millions to flee their homes.
CPJ’s email to the SAF requesting comment on Fadlallah’s arrest and death did not receive any replies.
We look at what we know about two deadly incidents that unfolded in the United States on New Year’s Day: a truck attack in New Orleans in which a driver killed at least 14 people before being shot dead by police, and the explosion of a Tesla Cybertruck outside a Trump hotel in Las Vegas, part of an apparent suicide. The FBI has identified the New Orleans suspect as 42-year-old U.S. Army veteran Shamsud-Din Jabbar, who had posted videos to social media before the attack pledging allegiance to the Islamic State militant group. In the Las Vegas case, the driver was 37-year-old Matthew Livelsberger of Colorado, an active-duty Army Green Beret, who is believed to have shot himself before the blast. Investigators say they have not found a link between the two incidents despite both men being connected to the military, but Army veteran and antiwar organizer Mike Prysner says “military service is now the number one predictor of becoming what is called a mass casualty offender, surpassing even mental health issues.” Prysner says the U.S. military depends on social problems like alienation and inequality in order to gain new recruits, then “spits them back out” in often worse shape, with people exposed to violence sometimes turning to extremism. “We have these deep-rooted problems in our society that give rise to these incidents of mass violence. Service members and veterans … can actually be a part of changing society and getting to the root of those issues and moving society forward,” he says, citing uniformed resistance to the Vietnam and Iraq wars as examples.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
Myanmar’s Arakan Army insurgents captured the west coast town of Gwa from the military, a major step toward their goal of taking the whole of Rakhine state, and then said they were ready for talks with the junta.
Gwa is on the coast in the south of Myanmar’s western-most state, 185 kilometers (115 miles) northwest of the main city of Yangon, and a gateway to the rice-basket Irrawaddy River delta.
The AA said their fighters took control of Gwa on Sunday afternoon as junta troops fled but the military was trying to counter-attack with the help of its air force and navy guns.
“The fighting is raging in some areas near Gwa. The junta council has sent reinforcements and they’re trying to re-enter,” the AA said in a statement late on Sunday.
Residents reported blazes in the town from junta artillery and airstrikes.
“Heavy weapons have landed in the town and everything is on fire,” said one resident who declined to be identified for safety reasons.
Early on Sunday, a barrage of small-arms fire was heard as the AA launched their push, followed by air attacks, the resident said.
“The small-arms fire has gone but now they’re bombing,” he told Radio Free Asia.
The AA said it believed 700 junta soldiers had been killed in weeks of battle for the town, based on bodies found, information from prisoners and documents seized. It did not give any information about casualties on its side or about civilian casualties.
It was not possible to independently verify the AA’s casualty figure and a spokesman for the junta that seized power in a 2021 coup did not respond to phone calls from RFA seeking comment.
All sides in Myanmar play up their victories and their enemies’ losses while minimizing their own in public statements.
The AA, one of Myanmar’s most powerful insurgent groups, has been accused of killings and other serious rights violations against the mostly Muslim Rohingya community. It denies that.
The capture of Gwa is another big step in a matter of days for AA troops, who are fighting for self-determination in Rakhine state.
They took a major military base in Ann town on Dec. 20 and have now captured 14 of the state’s 17 townships, pushing the military into shrinking pockets of territory.
The military is reinforcing its troops in the townships it controls – Sittwe, Kyaukphyu and Munaung, residents said this month.
Neighboring China has economic interests in Myanmar, among them plans for a port in Kyaukphyu, where it also has energy facilities, including oil and gas pipelines that run to its Yunnan province.
China, keen to end Myanmar’s conflict, has pressed two rebel groups in Shan state in the northeast to agree to ceasefires and talks.
The AA praised China’s “active leadership” in promoting border stability and said it would talk at any time.
“We always remain open to resolving the current internal issues through political means rather than military solutions,” the AA said.
It did not refer to a ceasefire and said it believed its offensive over the past year would contribute to the “liberation” of all of the oppressed Myanmar people.
The junta chief has also called for talks as his forces grapple with setbacks.
The AA said it recognized and welcomed any foreign investment that contributed to development and said it would take care of investors.
The Institute for Strategy and Policy (ISP-Myanmar), an independent research group, said this week that the AA controls 10 of the 11 Chinese projects in Rakhine state.
The fall of the state capital of Sittwe to the AA would represent the end of military rule there, political analyst Than Soe Naing told RFA
“Then the AA will have to talk about issues related to China’s interests,” he said.
Edited by RFA Staff.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.
Myanmar’s junta appointed a new minister of defense, state-controlled media reported, in the wake of significant insurgent advances across the county that have put the military under unprecedented pressure.
Gen. Maung Maung Aye, who has been chief of general staff, was appointed minister in place of Gen. Tin Aung San, who retained his position as deputy prime minister, media reported.
State media did not give a reason for the change in its reports on Wednesday but the military has suffered major setbacks at the hands of insurgent forces over the past year.
RFA called junta spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun for comment, but he did not respond by time of publication.
A defense official in a parallel government in exile, the National Unity Government, or NUG, said the junta would be determined to change the trajectory of the war.
“Across the whole country, the army is obviously losing very badly, so this could be to redeem themselves or change that,” said NUG defense official Aung San Sha.
The new defense minister will have to deal immediately with a crisis in Rakhine state in the west, where ethnic minority Arakan Army insurgents are closing in on the military’s Western Command headquarters in the town of Ann.
The loss of the base will be a major setback for the army against one of Myanmar’s most powerful guerrilla forces.
Ethnic Kachin insurgents are battling to capture the northern town of Bhamo, while fighters in the northwest, central areas and the east have also made advances.
In Shan state in the northeast, insurgents captured the town of Lashio, on an important trade route to the nearby border with China, in August and have held on to it despite a relentless campaign of airstrikes by the military.
China has pressed two insurgent armies in Shan state to talk peace with the junta but it is not clear if the rebels will withdraw from the places they have captured, including Lashio.
The new minister will be responsible for providing security for an election expected next year, which the junta hopes will boost its legitimacy, both at home and abroad, even though the opposition has rejected the vote as meaningless when their leaders, including Aung San Suu Kyi, are in prison.
A former soldier who defected to the ranks of the junta’s opponents said the outgoing minister was also paying the price for implementing a deeply unpopular campaign of conscripting young people, with nothing to show for it.
“All over the country the military is suffering – they’re recruiting and aren’t succeeding,” said the defector, Naung Ro. “It’s also because of this that Tin Aung San has been replaced,”
Maung Maung Aye will be the third defense minister appointed by the junta that seized power with the ouster of an elected government in February 2021.
Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.
Arakan rebels are fighting within the borders of the junta’s Western Military Command headquarters in Myanmar’s Rakhine state after having taken control of nearby Ann township last week, residents said Tuesday.
The Arakan Army, or AA, is fighting for self-determination in Myanmar’s western-most state and has made unprecedented progress over the past year, pushing forces loyal to the junta that seized power in 2021 into a few pockets of territory.
On Nov. 30, the AA seized the junta’s last military posts in Ann’s Myo Thit, Lay Yin Kwin, Aut Ywar and Ah Hta Ka neighborhoods, taking complete control of the town, which lies 220 kilometers (135 miles) west of Myanmar’s capital Naypyidaw.
By Tuesday, AA fighters had penetrated the headquarters of the junta in Rakhine state and the military has responded with aerial strikes and troop reinforcements, a resident of Ann told RFA Burmese.
“The AA is now able to break into the western command headquarters and is calling on the remaining troops in the junta’s western command to surrender,” said the resident who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns.
Another resident, who is familiar with the ongoing conflict and also declined to be named, told RFA that junta troops were advancing to the headquarters along the 150-kilometer (93-mile) road connecting Ann northeast to Minbu township “in large numbers,” and had taken up defensive positions along Chinese infrastructure projects.
On Nov. 20, the AA captured the town of Toungup in the center of the state, which is on a road hub including a link to the the Kyaukpyu economic zone on the coast, where China is funding a deep-sea port, and has energy facilities including natural gas and oil pipelines running to southern China.
Beijing threw its support behind the junta shortly after the 2021 coup and Senior General Min Aung Hlaing’s regime has vowed to protect Chinese interests in Myanmar amid the country’s nearly four-year civil war.
Reinforcements en route
Meanwhile, residents said that a junta column of about 200 troops is advancing west towards Ann along the road that links it to neighboring Magway region’s Padan township.
All the while, the military has been resupplying its troops in the Western Command headquarters with weapons and other supplies by air, they said.
Last week, when the AA took control of Ann, sources told RFA that only a few residents had remained in the township and the AA had taken them to safety, leaving the town empty.
Attempts by RFA to contact Hla Thein, the junta’s attorney general for Rakhine state, about the fighting in Ann township went unanswered Tuesday, as did efforts to reach AA spokesperson Khaing Thu Kha.
The AA, which largely draws its support from Rakhine’s Buddhist majority, has made steady advances over the past year, from the state’s far north on the border with Bangladesh, through central areas to its far south, and it now controls about 80% of it.
On Dec. 6, the AA announced that it had taken control of all of the junta’s more than 30 camps in Rakhine, except for the Western Military Command headquarters.
Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.
Insurgents in Myanmar’s Rakhine state have captured the military’s last posts in Ann town and have turned their attention to a nearby army headquarters, residents said on Tuesday, another major step in the rebels’ aim to control the entire state.
The Arakan Army, or AA, is fighting for self-determination in Myanmar’s western-most state and has made unprecedented progress over the past year, pushing forces loyal to the junta that seized power in 2021 into a few pockets of territory.
Residents of Ann, which is 220 km (135 miles) west of the capital, Naypyidaw, said the AA had seized the junta’s last posts in the Myo Thit, Lay Yin Kwin, Aut Ywar and Ah Hta Ka neighborhoods by Saturday, taking complete control of the town.
“The Arakan Army has captured the entire town except the Western Command headquarters,‘’ one resident told Radio Free Asia.
“Junta forces from their battalion areas captured by AA have gone to gather at the headquarters and are defending there,” said the resident, who declined to be identified for safety reasons.
The military had fired at the advancing insurgents, setting fires in some of the town’s neighborhoods but the extent of the damage was not known, said the resident, adding he had no information about casualties in the fighting.
AA fighters were now trying to seize the military headquarters on the southern side of Ann, where the defenders were being supported by extensive airstrikes, residents said.
“The junta is protecting the Western Command day and night with massive firing from the air,” said the resident, who declined to be identified for safety reasons.
Only a few civilians had remained in Ann and the AA had taken them to safety so the town was now empty, the resident said.
“There are people staying in the forest in shelters they’ve made waiting to go home if the situation improves,” the resident said.
RFA tried to telephone AA spokesperson Khing Thukha, as well as military council spokesman Hla Thein to ask about the situation but neither of them answered phone calls.
The AA, which largely draws its support from the state’s Buddhist majority, has made steady advances over the past year, from the state’s far north on the border with Bangladesh, through central areas to its far south, and it now controls about 80% of it.
On Nov. 20, the insurgents captured the town of Toungup in the centre of the state, which is on a road hub including a link to the the Kyaukpyu economic zone on the coast, where China is funding a deep-sea port, and has energy facilities including natural gas and oil pipelines running to southern China.
Residents said that AA was attacking the military’s Number 5 Operation Command headquarters, to the south of Toungup on the road to the town of Thandwe.
In the far south of the state, fighting is getting closer to the junta-controlled town of Gwa township, residents there said.
The AA has fully captured 10 of Rakhine state’s 17 townships as well as Paletwa township in neighboring Chin state.
Edited by RFA Staff
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.
The Arakan Army insurgent group in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state has made rapid advances against the junta over the past year and controls more territory and people than any other rebel force in Myanmar.
Rakhine state, or Arakan as it used to be known, was a separate kingdom until it was conquered by Burmese kings in 1784.
Now the Arakan Army, or AA, could be on the brink of a major step towards fulfilling what it calls the “Arakan Dream”, of once again securing self-determination for the state of more than 3 million people, some 60% of whom are ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and about 35% Muslim Rohingya.
As the AA advances towards its goal of driving out junta forces, scrutiny has turned to how it sees Rakhine state’s future in Myanmar, how it would handle the state’s Muslim minority, amid accusations of serious rights abuses, which the AA denies, and how it would accommodate China’s economic ambitions.
Lightning progress
The AA was founded in 2009 by members of the ethnic Rakhine community, led by former student activist Twan Mrat Naing, seeking shelter with the Kachin Independence Army, or KIA, in northern Myanmar.
The AA recruited some of its first fighters among Rakhine men working in jade mines in Kachin state. They gained experience fighting the military alongside the KIA and other insurgent forces in Shan state, before filtering back into Rakhine state from around 2014.
The AA burst onto the scene in Rakhine state on Jan. 4, 2019, with Independence Day attacks on four police stations.
Aung San Suu Kyi, who led a civilian government at the time, ordered the military to crush the “terrorist” force but the two sides later agreed to a ceasefire.
The AA condemned the military’s February 2021 coup but did not immediately resort to arms. Over the next two years of on-again, off-again ceasefires, the AA built up its administrative capacity through its political wing, the United League of Arakan, including a COVID-19 vaccination drive.
In November 2023, it launched a large-scale offensive in coordination with two Shan state insurgent forces, as part of the Three Brotherhood Alliance.
The AA made lightning progress, initially in northern Rakhine state and a southern part of neighboring Chin state that it claims, seizing military outposts, bases and towns, as well as large amounts of arms and ammunition.
Arakan Army soliders with captured arms and ammunition in a phto posted on the group’s website on Feb. 13, 2024.
The AA claims to have more than 30,000 fighters though independent analysts suspect its strength is around 20,000.
The AA controls about 80% of Rakhine state – 10 of its 17 townships and one in neighboring Chin state. In townships it does not control, it has pinned junta forces into pockets of territory, such as the state capital, Sittwe, the town of Ann, home of the military’s Western Command, and the Kyaukpyu economic zone on the coast where China has energy facilities.
While all of Myanmar’s insurgent forces want to throw off military rule, they differ when it comes to ultimate aims. Most ethnic minority forces and pro-democracy militias drawn from the majority Burman community aspire to a democratic, federal union but the AA has called for a vaguely defined “confederate status” for Rakhine state.
“We will see whether a Federal Union of Myanmar will have the political space for the kind of confederation that our Arakanese people aspire for,” AA leader Twan Mrat Naing told the Asia Times newspaper in a 2022 interview.
The prospect of the AA governing Rakhine state is bound to raise fears for the Rohingya. The AA’s position on the persecuted Muslim minority community has shifted over the years, from seemingly moderate and inclusive to accusations of mass killings this year.
The catalyst for the hardening of the AA line on the Rohingya was a campaign by the junta to recruit, at times forcibly, Rohingya men into militias to fight the AA.
U.N. investigators said they documented attacks on Rohingya by both the AA and the junta. On Aug. 5, scores of Rohingya trying to flee from the town of Maungdaw to Bangladesh, across a border river, were killed by drones and artillery fire that survivors and rights groups said was unleashed by the AA. The AA denied responsibility.
As well as capturing large volumes of weapons from the military, the AA has been helped by its insurgent allies in the northeast, analysts say. For revenue, it says it relies on taxes and donations from Rakhine workers overseas. It denies any link to the flow of methamphetamines from producers in Myanmar to a booming black market in Bangladesh.
The role of China is likely to be crucial as it seeks to bring peace to Myanmar. China has extensive economic interests in its southern neighbor including a hub for its Belt and Road energy and infrastructure network in Rakhine state at Kyaukpyu, where China wants to build a deep sea port.
Natural gas and oil pipelines begin at Kyaukpyu and run across Myanmar to southern China. The AA, like other insurgents in Myanmar, has not attacked Chinese interests, though it has surrounded Kyaukpyu.
Some analysts say the AA, with its northeastern Myanmar connections, has links to China. However, there has been no public indication that China is pressing the AA to make peace with the junta, as it has done with groups in northern and northeastern Myanmar.
Edited by Kiana Duncan and Taejun Kang.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Staff.
The leader of an ethnic rebel army was being held under house arrest in China’s Yunnan province in the latest move by Beijing to pressure it to withdraw from Lashio, northern Shan state’s biggest city, a source close to the army told Radio Free Asia.
The insurgent Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, or MNDAA, captured the junta’s military headquarters in Lashio in July. In August, it took full control of the town, which serves as an important commercial gateway near the Chinese border.
The MNDAA’s leader, Peng Daxun, traveled to Yunnan province in late October for medical treatment and was later detained by Chinese authorities, according to the source, who requested anonymity for security reasons.
Armed police walking past people at a market area in Lashio in Myanmar’s northern Shan state on Sept. 10, 2024, after the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) seized the town from Myanmar’s military in August. (AFP Photo)
“He is under detention to negotiate withdrawal of his troops from Lashio,” the source said.
The detention followed a meeting in Yunnan in late October between Peng Daxun and Deng Xijun, the special representative for Asian Affairs at China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China, according to another source.
A source close to the military junta regime told RFA that Peng Daxunwas being held at a hotel in Yunnan that’s owned by his father.
China’s interests
The MNDAA is part of the Three Brotherhood Alliance, a group of three ethnic minority insurgent forces that launched its highly effective Operation 1027 offensive in October 2023, which has since captured vast swathes of junta-held territory.
A renewal of the offensive in June led to the capture of the junta’s northeastern command headquarters near Lashio – the only one of 14 such regional military command headquarters to fall into rebel hands.
The MNDAA took control of Lashio on Aug. 3, one of the most significant victories for the three-party alliance. Junta efforts to recapture the town have focused on frequent airstrikes and shelling.
China has since tried to protect its interests in the region by brokering several temporary ceasefires between the junta and alliance members.
Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army ethnic armed group flags and Alliance flags raised by the welcome archway to Lashio in Myanmar’s northern Shan State on Aug. 10, 2024. (AFP Photo)
On Aug. 27, Deng Xijun invited Zhao Guo-ang, the vice-chairman of the United Wa State Party – Myanmar’s largest ethnic army – to Yunnan province to ask for help pressuring for the withdrawal of MNDAA forces.
The UWSA vowed last year to remain neutral as the Three Brotherhood Alliance began its large-scale operation against junta forces. But in July, its troops entered Lashio without incident after MNDAA forces had taken over most of the city.
China has also cut off shipments of fuel, medicine and food items through its border into the MNDAA-controlled areas in Shan state.
In September, the MNDAA said it had cut ties with Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government. It said it would work with China to bring peace, but days later the junta bombed Lashio and peace talks never took place.
Beijing has recently stepped up its support for the military junta, and earlier this month, junta leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing traveled to Kunming – the capital of Yunnan – for talks with provincial officials.
RFA has reached out via email to the Chinese Embassy in Yangon and the MNDAA’s information team for comments but neither immediately responded.
Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Matt Reed.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.
The leader of an ethnic rebel army was being held under house arrest in China’s Yunnan province in the latest move by Beijing to pressure it to withdraw from Lashio, northern Shan state’s biggest city, a source close to the army told Radio Free Asia.
The insurgent Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, or MNDAA, captured the junta’s military headquarters in Lashio in July. In August, it took full control of the town, which serves as an important commercial gateway near the Chinese border.
The MNDAA’s leader, Peng Daxun, traveled to Yunnan province in late October for medical treatment and was later detained by Chinese authorities, according to the source, who requested anonymity for security reasons.
Armed police walking past people at a market area in Lashio in Myanmar’s northern Shan state on Sept. 10, 2024, after the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) seized the town from Myanmar’s military in August. (AFP Photo)
“He is under detention to negotiate withdrawal of his troops from Lashio,” the source said.
The detention followed a meeting in Yunnan in late October between Peng Daxun and Deng Xijun, the special representative for Asian Affairs at China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China, according to another source.
A source close to the military junta regime told RFA that Peng Daxunwas being held at a hotel in Yunnan that’s owned by his father.
China’s interests
The MNDAA is part of the Three Brotherhood Alliance, a group of three ethnic minority insurgent forces that launched its highly effective Operation 1027 offensive in October 2023, which has since captured vast swathes of junta-held territory.
A renewal of the offensive in June led to the capture of the junta’s northeastern command headquarters near Lashio – the only one of 14 such regional military command headquarters to fall into rebel hands.
The MNDAA took control of Lashio on Aug. 3, one of the most significant victories for the three-party alliance. Junta efforts to recapture the town have focused on frequent airstrikes and shelling.
China has since tried to protect its interests in the region by brokering several temporary ceasefires between the junta and alliance members.
Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army ethnic armed group flags and Alliance flags raised by the welcome archway to Lashio in Myanmar’s northern Shan State on Aug. 10, 2024. (AFP Photo)
On Aug. 27, Deng Xijun invited Zhao Guo-ang, the vice-chairman of the United Wa State Party – Myanmar’s largest ethnic army – to Yunnan province to ask for help pressuring for the withdrawal of MNDAA forces.
The UWSA vowed last year to remain neutral as the Three Brotherhood Alliance began its large-scale operation against junta forces. But in July, its troops entered Lashio without incident after MNDAA forces had taken over most of the city.
China has also cut off shipments of fuel, medicine and food items through its border into the MNDAA-controlled areas in Shan state.
In September, the MNDAA said it had cut ties with Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government. It said it would work with China to bring peace, but days later the junta bombed Lashio and peace talks never took place.
Beijing has recently stepped up its support for the military junta, and earlier this month, junta leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing traveled to Kunming – the capital of Yunnan – for talks with provincial officials.
RFA has reached out via email to the Chinese Embassy in Yangon and the MNDAA’s information team for comments but neither immediately responded.
Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Matt Reed.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.
#FakeNews #FactCheck #Pahalgam pic.twitter.com/KgX9HQe3Lh
