Thailand mobilizes armed forces to protect borders with Myanmar
Myanmar's army appears to have been forced to abandon the important border town of Lef on the eastern border with Thailand after an intense assault by an alliance of fighters opposing the military regime.
Thai PBS reported on Monday that many hundreds of Myanmar citizens, including 67 military officers and 410 non-commissioned officers, as well as their family members, were waiting to enter Thailand after the Naypyidaw regime requested permission for a plane to fly. land on the Thai side to pick up the group.
The Karen National Union (KNU) had earlier said that soldiers from its armed wing, the Karen National Liberation Army, in alliance with anti-coup fighters from the People's Defense Force, took control of the military base in the city, sharing photos of weapons and ammunition they said they had seized.
Myawaddy is located just across the border from Mae Sot, Thailand, and is an important trade route.
Mae Sot
Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said that even with renewed fighting since the February 2021 coup, bilateral trade through the checkpoint between April 2023 and March 2024 amounted to more than $1 billion and the loss of Myawaddy was significant.
“This is a big blow to the Myanmar military junta,” he told Al Jazeera. “It is the largest and most important of the six official border crossings between Thailand and Burma.”
Refugees from Myanmar
Generals led by army chief Min Aung Hlaing seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021, triggering a crisis that has displaced thousands and left millions in need of humanitarian assistance.
The military has come under increasing pressure across the country since the Three Brotherhood Alliance, another coalition of ethnic armed groups, launched a major offensive in northern Shan and western Rakhine states late last October , conquering hundreds of military outposts. By February many border guards had abandoned their positions and fled to India.
Forced to fight on multiple fronts, the generals stepped up airstrikes and announced a policy of forced conscription.
“The military has really painted itself into a corner, waging a very unpopular war against the people of Myanmar who refuse to return to a military dictatorship and all that entails,” Robertson said.
Smoke from ongoing fighting in Myanmar
Thailand mobilizes troops on border
The Thai military beefed up security Wednesday along a western border town bordering Myanmar, where anti-junta rebels continued to clash with a weakened army that has suffered a series of defeats in frontier areas.
Several Thai army vehicles, equipped with roof-mounted machine guns, patrolled the streets of Mae Sot, even as the sound of explosions and heavy fighting rang out on the other side of the border in Myawaddy, four local residents said. Two F 16 fighters were also moved to the area to prevent the military regime's planes from intruding.
“Security in the city is tighter than before. My neighbor was checked by Thai soldiers when she approached the border area,” said a Myanmar national taking refuge in Mae Sot, declining to be named.
“Soldiers are patrolling along the border, checking everyone.”
Two Thai military commanders told local media that fighting was still ongoing around Myawaddy, an outpost attacked by the Karen National Union (KNU) and allied anti-junta groups, and it was unclear how far the forces' advance was. anti-government.
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The article Thailand mobilizes armed forces to protect borders with Myanmar comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/la-thailandi-mobilita-le-forze-armate-per-proteggere-i-confini-con-il-myanmar/ on Thu, 11 Apr 2024 05:15:05 +0000.