Junta boss: Regime to respond to revolutionary armed groups ‘as necessary’

By Admin 04 Sep 2024

DMG Newsroom
4 September 2024, Taunggyi, southern Shan State

Myanmar’s military regime will respond to the revolutionary armed groups across the country as necessary, junta boss Min Aung Hlaing said during a visit to Taunggyi, Shan State, on September 3.

“The military regime will necessarily protect the sovereignty of the country, and will respond as necessary depending on the availability of information from the armed insurgents and the circumstances,” said the junta chief.

He continued that people in towns and villages where revolutionary armed groups are “infiltrating” need to be careful not to be exploited and to ensure safety.

Some ethnic armed groups are taking advantage of the political crisis to expand their territory, claimed Min Aung Hlaing, who is also Myanmar’s self-appointed acting president and prime minister.

He went on to say that the armed groups are using the people’s houses and civil administration facilities to defend against the military regime’s counter-offensives in the towns and villages they have infiltrated, and they are also conducting forced recruitment and mobilisation of displaced people to resettle in order to use them as human shields.

On the ground, people DMG spoke to said they were not afraid of the armed resistance groups, but were afraid of the military regime’s airstrikes and artillery attacks.

“The people of the areas occupied by the revolutionary groups are living peacefully, but they feel insecurity every day due to the dangers of the military regime’s airstrikes and artillery attacks,” said a local politician.

The Brotherhood Alliance, which consists of the Arakkha Army (AA), Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) and Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), has so far seized about 80 towns in Arakan, Shan and Kayin states, and Sagaing and Mandalay regions, since the group launched its “Operation 1027” in late October 2023.

The regime has also announced that it will launch an offensive attack to recapture the areas it has lost to the anti-regime forces.

The regime declared the AA, MNDAA and TNLA terrorist organisations on September 2.