Myanmar Regime Pushes on Four Fronts in Southern Chin State

Regime troops pose after capturing Yinke village in Magwe's Saw Township./MOI

Thousands of regime troops are advancing on four fronts across southern Chin State as they push to seize the gateway to Rakhine State, according to resistance sources.

On Wednesday, the military claimed its forces had secured Hlaingdoke and nearby villages in Kanpetlet Township along the Rakhine border after clearance operations along the Laung She-Hlaingdoke-Kyindwe road.

The regime’s counteroffensive to retake Chin resistance strongholds spans from Magwe Region’s Tilin and Saw townships, across the border into Mindat, Kanpetlet and Kyindwe townships.

Intense clashes have erupted in Magwe’s border villages of Shweaungthar and Kyee as regime forces advance to cut off supply lines to Mindat, according to resistance sources.

“The regime has deployed roughly 3,000 troops across all the fronts,” Yaw Meng, spokesperson for the Chin People’s Army (CPA), told The Irrawaddy.

Map of the regime’s southern Chin campaign./The Irrawaddy

Regime forces began massing for a southward push five months ago after securing the northern Chin towns of Tonzang, Falam, and Thantlang. The southern Chin campaign launched in May, when around 1,500 troops advanced on Kanpetlet and Mindat from Magwe’s Saw and Kyaukhtu townships respectively, according to the CPA.

“During five months of clashes, resistance forces repelled regime troops and defended the Chin State and its people,” Yaw Meng wrote in an October 20 Facebook post.

He declined to comment on the current battlefield situation in southern Chin, where the regime’s ground offensive is accompanied by indiscriminate airstrikes.

On Sunday, a bomb struck the Paletwa jetty, killing nine civilians including a six-month-old child and injuring four others. A regime airstrike on the same site killed another person the following day, according to the Chin People’s Union, the CPA’s political wing.