The junta’s military is preparing to launch a major offensive dubbed Operation Sin Phyu Shin – “Lord of the White Elephant” – to retake the areas of northern Shan State captured by the Brotherhood Alliance and its allies since they launched Operation 1027 late last year.
“Operation Lord of the White Elephant” will be led by junta number two, Vice-Senior General Soe Win, multiple sources said.
The junta set up a committee to lead the operation last week and placed Vice-Senior General Soe Win in control of it, according to one source close to the junta military officers in Naypyitaw and Captain Zin Yaw – who defected to the Civil Disobedience Movement – who cited multiple sources in the junta’s military.
The regime’s cheer squad on Telegram is saying that three recently promoted generals have been assigned to command troops in the operation.
The operation’s name refers to Burmese King Hsinbyushin of the Konbaung dynasty who is revered among the generals for waging wars against Qing China and Siam.
It follows a second string of humiliating defeats suffered by junta troops in northern Shan State in July to the Brotherhood Alliance and its allied resistance forces. The first series of defeats began in late October and ended when China intervened to broker a ceasefire in January.
The Brotherhood Alliance, comprising three ethnic armies – the Arakan Army, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army and the Ta’ang Nationalities Liberation Army (TNLA) – overran dozens of towns and battalions in northern Shan State during its first phase. It also punctured the Tatmadaw’s reputation as a competent fighting force when many of its troops and senior officers raised the white flag in the face of determined and coordinated attacks.
The operation resumed in late June after the China-brokered ceasefire collapsed. Since then, the alliance has seized northern Shan’s Kyaukme, Nawnghkio and Lashio towns, and the Northeastern Military Command, as well as Madaya and Mogoke towns in Mandalay Region.
Sources said the goal of “Operation Lord of the White Elephant” is to retake the towns the junta lost, especially in northern Shan State. They doubted, however, that the regime had the vigor to launch a massive offensive to retrieve towns and bases it had either lost or surrendered.
Captain Zin Yaw said “Operation Lord of the White Elephant” is the junta’s way of delivering a morale boost to troops on the ground. “In reality, the junta’s military has no capacity to launch the offensive,” he said.
The junta’s military is struggling to block ethnic armed groups and their resistance allies from continuing their advance south, so it has no ability to reverse the war’s trajectory with a push north, the captain explained. It is trying to prevent the loss of southern Shan state, he added.
TNLA spokesperson Lway Yay Oo said that she does not know exactly what the junta’s military is hoping to accomplish with an operation named “Lord of the White Elephant,” but added that one dynamic remains constant: Plans made at the junta’s top level remain disconnected from the reality on the ground.
“Whatever its propaganda channels are saying and whatever it is preparing, we are still seeing this differs from what actually happens on ground,” she explained.
The TNLA notices that the junta’s military keeps sending troops, but they either become deserters or don’t know how to fight, she added.
Before Operation Sin Phyu Shin, the junta launched Operation Aung Zeya in April to retake Myawaddy on the border with Thailand, but its troops were stuck in the Dawna Mountains for months due to attacks by ethnic Karen and other resistance troops before they retreated.
Meanwhile in northern Shan State, fighting continued breaking out between the TNLA and the junta’s military in Nawnghkio’s Thayet Cho and Taung Hkam villages on Wednesday and Thursday as the junta kept sending reinforcements into the area, according to a TNLA statement.
Taung Hkam is a large village on the road between Nawnghkio and Yatsauk [Lawksawk] townships in southern Shan State.
Fighting in Taung Hkam is a defensive strategy by the junta to prevent the TNLA and its allies from entering southern Shan State, Captain Zin Yaw and a conflict analyst said.
