A week after local armed resistance groups seized the commercial town of Rikhawdar on the India-Myanmar border, the junta lost another town in Chin State on Friday.
Clashes between junta Infantry Battalion 304 and an alliance of fighters led by the Chin National Army (CNA)—the armed wing of the Chin National Front (CNF)—broke out earlier this week in the small town of Lailenpi, located in northwestern Matupi Township.
After capturing the military’s main base in Lailenpi, located some five miles from the Myanmar-India border and 50 miles south of Rikhawdar, the anti-junta armed groups posted a video clip showing themselves raising the CNF flag at the captured base.
“We seized the base and took control of the town of Lailenpi,” CNF spokesperson Salai Htet Ni told Myanmar Now.
This victory was achieved, he added, after three days of attacks on the junta outpost, which had been manned by at least 50 junta troops.
“We can say that this base also provides security for their tactical command. The location of the Lailenpi base is very important for coordinating between the CNA and local defence forces,” Salai Htet Ni said, referring to smaller resistance forces allied with the CNA.
Details of the casualties among junta troops were not yet confirmed, according to Salai Htet Ni, and a search for the junta soldiers who fled the base in ongoing in the area.
Maj. Soe Win Htike, 37, the second-in-command at the military’s Lailenpi base, was killed in a drone attack at around 3am on Wednesday, according to a member of the anti-junta Chinland Defence Force and a personal acquaintance of the deceased.
A source connected to the Myanmar army said the major was survived by his wife and two young children.
Local Chin resistance forces control most of the routes between towns in Chin State, where the mountainous terrain makes off-road travel difficult. This has impeded the junta in transporting reinforcements, arms, and supplies to the area and forced them to rely more on airstrikes, according to Salai Htet Ni.
During the three-day battle, the junta launched close to 15 airstrikes, he said.
Captain Kaung Thu Win, a defector from the military, believes the military will find it difficult to reinforce its positions in Chin State.
“The main thing is that the space in which the military can operate will shrink. After retreating from the Lailenpi base, there will be no coming back. They will have to retreat away from the border, towards Matupi. As for Lailenpi, it will become a liberated area,” Captain Kaung Thu Win said, using a common phrase for territory under anti-junta forces’ control.
According to the Chin Human Rights Organisation (CHRO), two men of about 50 years of age from Lailenpi Town were killed during the fighting, and nearly 7,000 local civilians were forced to flee towards the Indian border. A church and some 15 houses were destroyed.
Shortly after the Brotherhood Alliance launched Operation 1027 in northern Shan State in late October, fighting also spread in Sagaing Region and in Karenni and Chin states over the following few weeks.
In addition to seizing control of Rikhawdar and Lailenpi in Chin State, anti-junta armed groups have taken control of Khampat, Sagaing Region, another town on the India-Myanmar border.
Earlier this month, the junta bombed the village of Wai Lu in Matupi Township, Chin State, despite a lack of fighting in the area. The airstrike killed 11 civilians, including eight children.
On March 30, another junta airstrike on the village of Khwaphoe in Chin State’s Thantlang Township killed nine civilians, including two children.
