The whole of the military’s Infantry Battalion (IB) 125, stationed in the northern Shan State border town of Konkyan, surrendered to the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) on Tuesday, a spokesperson from the ethnic Kokang armed organisation said.
IB 125 operates in the Laukkai District town in the Kokang Self-Administered Zone under the direction of the Northeastern Regional Military Command, which is based in the city of Lashio.
“Yesterday [junta troops] from the Konkyan hill base raised a white flag and surrendered,” said the MNDAA’s Li Kyar Win on Wednesday, but did not specify the number of soldiers that turned themselves over.
Myanmar army troops have been stationed in Konkyan for more than 60 years; the current base was constructed in 1992.
“Their Konkyan base has basements and helipads, and it is even stronger than the Kunlong base,” Li Kyar Win explained, referring to another site between the Kokang and Wa self-administered areas which the MNDAA overran on November 9. They were accompanied by the Ta’ang National Liberation Army and the Arakan Army, the three of which together form the three groups of the Brotherhood Alliance, which, since late October has been engaged in an offensive against the military in northern Shan State dubbed Operation 1027.
“No matter how many battles broke out in the Kokang region, they always used to be able to defend the Konkyan base,” Li Kyar Win continued, referring to the Myanmar army. “The fact that the soldiers from such a station have surrendered highlights the fact that the military is indeed falling.”
IB 125 is the second battalion in Laukkai to have turned themselves over to the Brotherhood in recent weeks; on November 12, more than 120 military personnel and their family members from IB 129 did the same.
Cpt Zin Yaw, an officer who defected from the military after the February 2021 coup in the country, told Myanmar Now that the surrenders suggested that the soldiers in question were not receiving the support they had likely requested from the regime’s leadership in Naypyitaw.
“They did not send them reinforcements and told them to hold off on their own, so the foot soldiers don’t want to listen to their orders anymore,” the former captain speculated. “You could say that they have finally prioritised their lives and their families over the military council and joined the people’s side.”
Zin Yaw said he anticipates that more battalions in the area will follow, and that the resistance forces may eventually be able to seize the Laukkai regional command.
“Their lives will be spared if they choose the people’s side. It’s as simple as that and they know that now.”
On October 30, more than 40 soldiers from Light Infantry Battalion 143 surrendered to the Brotherhood in Kunlong Township, among whom was the unit’s deputy commander-in-chief and two squadron commanders.
Since the start of Operation 1027, the Brotherhood Alliance has seized more than 100 junta bases in northern Shan State, 180 of which are in the Kokang region.
There have been large surrenders to resistance forces elsewhere in recent weeks, including 23 Myanmar army soldiers in Mon State’s Kyaikmayaw Township on November 13 and 32 troops who had been stationed inside Loikaw University in the Karenni State capital on November 14.
