Myanmar rebels raise flag at seized junta base

Bangkok Post Group

Myanmar resistance fighters on Monday raised their own banner at a newly captured army base, saying their fighters had repelled an attempt by junta troops to advance on the key town of Myawaddy along the Thai border that was seized by the rebels last week. - REUTERS

Transcript

00:00 Myanmar resistance fighters hoisted their own banner at a newly captured army base on

00:06 Monday as a senior rebel commander vowed to hold the strategic area near the Thai border.

00:12 The key trading town of Myawaddy was taken by fighters linked to the armed ethnic Karen

00:16 National Union, or KNU, less than a week ago.

00:21 Its fall marked another battlefield loss for the powerful military regime that seized control

00:25 in 2021 from an elected government led by Aung San Suu Kyi, who remains in detention.

00:31 Simmering anger against the junta has turned into a nationwide armed resistance movement.

00:37 Since October, the army has lost control of key areas nearest borders with both India

00:42 and China to a loose coalition of allied resistance forces.

00:46 We win in everywhere, step by step, but it will take time.

00:50 Saw Thani is a spokesperson for the KNU.

00:53 We need to have a kind of like coordination with other groups because in our country,

00:59 so many groups and so many differences, but we try for how we take coordination to block

01:06 and to defeat the military.

01:08 This is the thing that now we are trying to have among our current people, our current

01:12 group, also so many groups, but it doesn't matter.

01:15 We will take time and we try for how to unite.

01:21 The loss of Miyawaki at the Thai border could further dent trade revenue for the junta.

01:26 A spokesperson for the military government did not answer calls from Reuters on Monday.

01:31 The junta's leader said in a speech last month the forces fighting the military were, quote,

01:35 "destroying the path towards forming a union based on democratic values and federalism."

01:41 While the rebels celebrated Monday, Reuters reporters in Miyawaki could hear airstrikes

01:45 as fighting raged on the front lines about 25 miles to the west.

01:49 Arjunta reinforcements were trying to retake the area.

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