The leaders of three of Myanmar’s most powerful ethnic rebel groups fighting the junta recently claimed that the regime will be toppled soon as it is losing its multi-front war.
The junta is losing ground across the country, except in Rakhine State where the Arakan Army agreed a temporary ceasefire after intense clashes across the state.
Now the junta is losing bases in attacks by resistance groups and the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), the armed wing of the country’s oldest revolutionary group Karen Nation Union, and even around the capital, Naypyitaw.
The regime is also losing diplomatically with
increasing international pressure.
In a speech at the 75th anniversary of the Karenni Armed Force Day on Thursday, Major General Aung Myat, head of the Karenni Army (KA), the armed wing of the country’s second oldest ethnic rebel group, the Karenni National Progressive Party founded in 1957, said the anti-junta revolutions will win as the Bamar majority has joined the fight for the first time.
The Bamar majority did not back resistance to previous regimes in the past.
“If we fail this time, we will always struggle as slaves,” the general told the event.
Following the 2021 coup, the KA has provided military training to anti-regime activists and helped the formation of the Karen Nationalities Defense Force, which is attacking regime targets across Kayah State and neighboring southern Shan State.
In a letter to Karenni’s Armed Force Day, the civilian National Unity Government said the decisive period is coming to defeat a regime that is failing militarily, economically, politically and diplomatically.
General N’Ban La, chairman of the Kachin Independence Organization, the political wing of the powerful Kachin Independence Army (KIA), said at the 48th Kachin Martyr’s Day on August 10 that the junta will fall soon.
He warned some organizations not to back a regime in crisis that is fighting the entire nation.
The KIA has also provided military training to thousands of anti-regime activities and fighting the junta alongside resistance groups in Kachin State, northern Shan State and Sagaing Region.
At a press conference on August 10, Brigadier General Saw Tamlar Thaw, the head of the KNLA, said the junta is changing its military strategy from offensive to defensive amid growing armed resistance.
“The regime is unable to conduct offensives. Instead, it conducts artillery and airstrikes on civilian targets and residential areas,” he said.
The KNLA’s head said it has now managed to conduct more offensives to the west of the Sittaung River in Bago Region.
The KNLA has also provided training to several thousand anti-regime activists since the military coup in 2021.
It has conducted more offensives alongside resistance groups and taken control of land in Karen and Mon states and Bago and Tanintharyi regions.
Recently, the KNLA and resistance groups seized a junta outpost and attacked military units in the mountains to the east of Naypyitaw.
