Clashes for border checkpoints intensify in Myanmar’s southernmost region

Fierce fighting has escalated near the Thai border in Myanmar’s south since the beginning of the year as ethnic armed groups and resistance allies struggle to defend captured bases and roads from a junta counteroffensive strengthened by fresh reinforcements. An alliance of anti-junta fighters led by the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), the armed wing of the Karen National Union (KNU), has controlled parts of Route 8—a major artery for trade on the Thailand-Myanmar border in the south—since 2023. KNU-led forces consolidated their control over trade routes by taking over the border gate in Htee Khee, Dawei Township and the town of Mawdaung, Tanintharyi Township, in 2025, provoking the military regime to mobilise for a counteroffensive. The anti-junta fighters’ hold on these positions is tenuous, according to Ko Zaw of FE5 Tanintharyi, a monitoring organisation documenting conflicts in the region. “Currently, the towns cannot be fully controlled, only surrounded and blockaded,” he said. “But any advance by the junta into these blockaded zones sparks intense clashes.” The military continues to control most major towns and battalion bases in Tanintharyi Region. After holding closely managed, nationwide elections in three phases between December and January, the Myanmar military regime initiated the counteroffensive in Tanintharyi Region, sending in multiple columns of troops. Anti-junta forces seize border outposts KNU-led forces relaunched a campaign to take over junta positions in Tanintharyi Region last year, seizing the Htee Khee border gate near Myitta in May with help from the resistance fighters of the People’s Defence Forces (PDF), as well as the town of Mawdaung in November. The ground troops now spearheading the junta’s counteroffensive are also supported by the regime’s air force and navy, with warships near Tanintharyi Region’s Andaman Sea coast positioned to fire heavy artillery from offshore. Trade with Thailand via the Htee Khee gate and other border posts, as well as the routes carrying goods from the border, are vital sources of revenue for Myanmar’s military regime, and the junta has treated the southern counteroffensive as an urgent priority since the election. “Mawdaung has high strategic importance,” FE5 Tanintharyi’s Ko Zaw explained. “Its loss caused major economic and trade setbacks. The junta has a clear plan to recapture the town—the only one they’ve lost in Tanintharyi Region—by any means necessary.” Weapons, ammunition, and prisoners captured during the battle for Mawdaung, Tanintharyi Region (Photo: Tin Lin Aung Facebook) An alliance of KNLA fighters commanded by the KNU, PDF fighters commanded by the publicly mandated National Unity Government (NUG), and members of the Bamar People’s Liberation Army joined in the assaults to capture Mawdaung in November 2025. The cooperation yielded significant results in addition to the takeover of the town, including the capture of large stockpiles of weapons and the retreat of dozens of junta soldiers into Thailand. Seizing Mawdaung was also a symbolic victory, as the town had been home to the KNU’s regional headquarters before the junta captured it in 1990. This year, junta forces have been pushing towards Mawdaung from two directions—along the Dawei-Htee Khee Tanintharyi-Mawdaung roads—fighting to recapture lost border trade checkpoints as they advance. The military has deployed five battalions—or roughly 400 troops—from a base in Thea Hpyu village some 25 miles west of Mawdaung, leading to clashes on the Tanintharyi-Mawdaung road, according to a KNLA officer based in Tanintharyi Township. “Their objective is to stop anti-junta forces from consolidating their defences in Mawdaung, manoeuvring tactically to scatter our troops, while still concentrating most of their forces on Mawdaung,” the KNLA officer said. The regime forces have also moved into surrounding villages from the village of Thein Khun some 33 miles west of Mawdaung, where the junta originally airdropped some 500 reinforcements in response to the anti-junta forces’ takeover of the town, according to FE5 Tanintharyi. More than 50 armed clashes were reported on the road between Tanintharyi and Mawdaung this year, prompting the displacement of tens of thousands of civilians from their homes, the monitoring group said in a statement issued in the third week of February. Ongoing resistance offensives While the junta moves to recapture lost ground near the border, anti-junta fighters have sought to bring the fighting closer to Tanintharyi Region’s regime-controlled capital, Dawei, using guerrilla tactics. Local resistance fighters struck a junta base camp near the Dawei Technological University, in the village of Maung Mei Shaung some five miles north of Dawei’s urban centre, on February 16. The attack killed 19 junta soldiers including a captain, according to officers of the Duraka Column, part of the Dawei National Liberation Army (DNLA), and the resistance fighters seized a machine gun, 17 rifles, grenades, and ammunition. Weapons, ammunition, and troops captured when anti-junta forces ambushed a column of junta reinforcements under Colonel Aye Lwin, head of security for Tanintharyi Region’s capital. Aye Lwin and four other soldiers were reportedly killed in the ambush. (Photo: DNLA - Duraka Column) During the attack near the university, resistance forces launched a simultaneous attack on the Hpa Yar Mae checkpoint but were forced to withdraw when the junta personnel on the ground called in air support, according to Comrade Duwon, a DNLA officer. DNLA fighters captured 11 junta prisoners of war that day, Comrade Duwon said, who were being held for prosecution in accordance with international laws on the treatment of POWs. The next day, members of the Duraka Column also took part in an ambush of a column of junta reinforcement troops that resulted in the deaths of five soldiers including the column’s commander Colonel Aye Lwin, head of security in the city of Dawei. Comrade Duwon noted that junta forces have also been advancing through neighbouring Thayetchaung Township and along the Dawei-Htee Khee route. “As the enemy steps up their operations, we’re responding in kind,” Comrade Duwon said. “With plans to intensify our offensives this year, we are expanding our operational area and striking junta camps.” Junta dependence on militias The Myanmar military has long relied on people’s militias consisting of civilians or retired servicemen trained and sponsored by the military but not serving as regular soldiers. The junta reactivated a decade-old conscription law in early 2024, pressing tens of thousands into military service, often by force. Findings reported in January 2026 by the research organisation Spring Revolution Database document 19,000 instances of civilians being forcibly recruited in the year after the law was revived. Of these, nearly 7,000 were recruited from cities and towns, more than 9,500 from rural areas, with others detained on roads, in camps for displaced people, or at train and bus stations. Despite this substantial addition of available manpower, the military has not stopped depending on “people’s militias” in their field operations around the country, including Tanintharyi Region. In February, KNLA-led forces captured 40 militia members during the battle for Mawdaung, reportedly from a battalion of around 100 that included around 70 militia members, with regular soldiers making up the remaining minority. Prisoners of war captured by Karen forces during the battle for Mawdaung, Tanintharyi Region, most of whom are militia members and not regular soldiers (Photo: Tin Lin Aung Facebook) According to a Tanintharyi Township-based KNLA officer, their prisoners told them that the military does not prioritise treatment of militia members’ injuries. “Testimonials from the captured people’s militia members indicate that even minor injuries were not properly treated,” the KNLA officer told Myanmar Now. “They received only basic first aid and were then left without further attention, whereas regular soldiers and officers who were wounded were assigned priority for evacuation and treatment.” Notably, the junta continues to depend on these militias even on the battlefronts it treats as essential priorities and to which it has deployed hundreds of regular troops, like Tanintharyi Region. “Their primary goal seems to be to take back control of Route 8 and drive the PDF back into the woods,” a locally based resistance fighter said. “They would then set up blockades along the road to prevent the PDF from coming back to the highway, securing their dominance over it.” The KNLA commander for Tanintharyi Township agreed, noting that the junta has sent over 700 militia members to the coastal city of Myeik, Tanintharyi Region to prepare for combat, with intelligence indicating the military plans to use them to strengthen the counteroffensive in the south. “The junta army has been deploying new forces and has greatly enhanced its drone capabilities,” he said. “With the limited troops and technology at our disposal, we won’t be able to keep up the defence for very long.”

Clashes for border checkpoints intensify in Myanmar’s southernmost region

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