Myanmar junta’s second-in-command accelerates forced recruitment of civilians into frontline service

On a visit to Sagaing Region on Monday, the deputy chair of Myanmar’s military council Vice-Sen-Gen Soe Win gave orders to expedite basic military training for civilian recruits providing compulsory service to combat troops, according to junta-controlled media. The deputy junta chief issued the orders, which applied to units made up of civilians to providing security and intelligence gathering for junta troops at the front lines, on an emergency visit to the military’s Northwestern Regional Military Command (RMC) headquarters in Monywa, Sagaing Region, the regime-run outlet Myawady News reported on Wednesday. The visit came a week after the military surrendered the Sagaing Region town of Pinlebu to the armed resistance. According to the junta’s “People’s Security System” plan, civilian recruits will be pressed to join auxiliary units for the purpose of performing sentry duty and informing the military about the movements of the resistance forces. The councils in charge of recruiting civilians for these units, called the People’s Security and Counter-Terrorism Committees, will also manage the provision of basic military training to the recruits. It was unclear from junta media reports whether the military plans to issue weapons to these recruits or pay them a regular salary. Upon issuing the orders, Soe Win said it would be necessary to form People's Security and Counter-Terrorism Committees in every ward and village, and that the public’s participation in these initiatives would strengthen security in Sagaing Region. The junta has been implementing the plan of compulsory civilian service, known as the People’s Security System, since August, requiring civilian men between 35 and 60 to join. Fighting on multiple fronts throughout Myanmar, the military reactivated a conscription law earlier this year requiring three to five years of military service from men between 18 and 35. Their initiation of the People’s Security System policy followed less than six months later. During his visit to the Northwestern RMC, the military council’s second-in-command also met with troops stationed at two junta battalion bases near the town of Wuntho, Sagaing Region and their families, according to the junta’s announcement. The Infantry Battalion 111 and Light Infantry Battalion 112 bases—where the troops are stationed—are located some 40 miles east of Pinlebu, the town captured by the armed resistance. According to Captain Zin Yaw, a defector from the Myanmar army who joined the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) to oppose the military coup of 2021, the deputy junta chief may have visited the Northwestern RMC in part to give detailed orders for recapturing Pinlebu. Captain Kaung Thu Win, another defector from the military and CDM participant, said that the visit was likely intended to boost the morale of troops that had retreated from Pinlebu, as well as guide the preparation of defences as junta forces regrouped in Wuntho. The capture of Pinlebu Township—which is on a road connecting the Ayeyarwady and Chindwin rivers and shares borders with four other Sagaing Region townships—constituted a breach of an important defensive line for the regime forces, according to a statement from the defence ministry of the publicly mandated National Unity Government, the governing body in command of Sagaing Region’s armed resistance. After junta troops withdrew from Pinlebu, resistance forces said they managed to hold the town and continued clearing landmines despite continuous junta airstrikes throughout the township. Aw Za, a spokesperson for the NUG's Military Region 1 command, said their reconnaissance had not yet found any sign of junta troop movements indicating a planned counterattack by ground forces on Pinlebu. “There are no enemy movements at the moment. However, we are continuing to block all possible entry points into and around the town and have implemented various security measures,” Aw Za said. He added that many homes, communications and electricity infrastructure, and government offices in Pinlebu had been damaged by the retreating ground troops and the subsequent airstrikes. The NUG announced that its defence minister Yee Mon visited Pinlebu on October 10 and met with army prisoners who had surrendered to the resistance. In Sagaing Region, where the armed resistance is relatively strong, resistance forces have previously captured and held the towns or large villages of Khampat, Shwe Pyi Aye, Myothit, Maw Luu and Pinlebu in upper Sagaing Region.

Myanmar junta’s second-in-command accelerates forced recruitment of civilians into frontline service

Vice-Sen-Gen Soe Win, the deputy chair of the military council, ordered expedited basic training for civilians while on an emergency visit to Sagaing Region after the military’s loss of the town of Pinlebu to resistance forces

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