With his army badly afflicted by resistance drone attacks over the past month, junta boss Min Aung Hlaing warned fresh graduates of the Defense Services Academy last Saturday to brace for 21st-century warfare and military strategies.
It is unusual for Myanmar’s military to disclose casualties or defeats in any battle. But Min Aung Hlaing has admitted on at least two occasions that drone attacks are taking a heavy toll on his troops in northern Shan State.
At the emergency meeting of the National Defense and Security Council on November 8, the regime chief lamented that junta positions in northern Shan State were being bombed with China-made drones easily bought in Myanmar.
At the regime meeting on November 29, he claimed that ethnic armed organizations had used high-technology drones to drop more than 25,000 bombs – with help from foreign drone experts.
Resistance drone attacks have intensified not just in northern Shan State but also in Kayah, Karen and Chin states. They were first deployed by anti-regime groups in mid-2022 but have since become more precise and lethal.
During trips abroad, junta home affairs minister Lieutenant-General Yar Pyae, his deputy, and police chief Lt-Gen Ni Lin Aung have admitted that unmanned aerial vehicles in the hands of “terrorists” have become a challenge to the military.
After years of boasting of its status as a modern fighting force equipped with Russia-made Su 30 fighters and Chinese FTC 200G combat aircraft, among other warplanes, Myanmar’s military now appears to be running scared of resistance drone units.
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