A bloody siege ends Myanmar army control of western border | Global News Avenue

The finale of BGP5’s barracks was loud and brutal. First, a hoarse speaker called on them to surrender; then, a thunderous barrage of artillery, rockets and rifle fire blew apart the buildings where hundreds of soldiers were hiding.

BGP5 – the letters stand for Border Guard Police – is Myanmar The junta’s last stand in northern Rakhine state on the border with Bangladesh.

Video taken by the insurgent Arakan Army (AA) who have besieged the base showed their ragtag fighters, many barefoot, firing a variety of weapons at the base while air force jets roared above them.

It was a brutal battle – perhaps Myanmar’s bloodiest civil war since World War II. Military seizes power in 2021 coup.

An AA source told the BBC: “They dug deep trenches around the base and filled them with spikes.”

“There were bunkers and fortified buildings. They planted over a thousand mines. Many of our fighters lost limbs or lives trying to break through.”

For coup leader General Min Aung Hlaing, it was another humiliating defeat after a year of military setbacks.

For the first time, his regime lost control of the entire border: the 270 kilometers (170 miles) of border between Myanmar and Bangladesh is now fully under AA control.

Despite being cut off from the rest of the country, only Rakhine state’s capital Sittwe remains firmly in the hands of the military, with the Arakan Army likely to become the first insurgent group to take full control of a state.

The army has been retreating rapidly from the Arakan Army since the beginning of the year, losing town after town.

The last troops were withdrawn in September Head to BGP5, a compound of about 20 hectares outside the border town of Maungdaw, the site of the AA siege.

BGP5 is built on the site of the Rohingya Muslim village Myo Thu Gyi, which was burned down during the violent expulsion of most of the Rohingya by the armed forces in 2017.

This was the first of many burned villages I saw when I visited Maungdaw after the military campaign ended in September of that year. Massive charred ruins are scattered among the dense tropical vegetation, and residents have been killed or forced to flee to Bangladesh.

When I returned two years later, the new police building had been built and all the trees had been removed, giving the defenders a clear view of any attacking force.

Air defense sources told us their progress was extremely slow, requiring the insurgents to dig their own trenches for cover.

It did not announce its own casualties. But judging from the intensity of the fighting in Maungdu that began in June, it is likely that hundreds of their own troops were lost.

Throughout the siege, the Myanmar air force bombarded Maungdaw, driving the last civilians out of the town.

Its planes dropped supplies at night to besieged soldiers, but it wasn’t enough. Local sources told us that their bunkers were well stocked with rice, but their injuries received no treatment and the soldiers were demoralized.

They began surrendering last weekend.

AA video showed them waving white cloths when they came out, looking pitiful. Some hobbled on makeshift crutches or jumped around with injured legs wrapped in rags. Few people wear shoes.

Inside the destroyed buildings, the victorious rebels photographed piles of bodies.

The AA said more than 450 soldiers were killed in the siege. It published photos of captured commander Brigadier General Thurin Tun and his officers kneeling under a flagpole that now flies the rebel flag.

Pro-military commentators in Myanmar have been venting their frustrations on social media.

“Min Aung Hlaing, you did not ask any of your children to join the army,” one wrote. “Is this how you are using us? Are you happy to see so many deaths in Rakhine State?”

Another wrote: “At this rate, the Tatmadaw will be left with only Min Aung Hlaing and a flagpole.”

The capture of BGP5 also demonstrates that the Arakan Army is one of Myanmar’s most effective fighting forces.

Founded in 2009, much later than most other rebel groups in Myanmar, the AA was formed in 2009 by young Rakhine men who migrated across the border with China in search of work as part of the Three Brothers Alliance. It has been responsible for most of the defeats suffered by the junta since last year.

Two other members of the alliance remain on the Shan border.

But the Arakan Army returned to Rakhine state eight years ago and began an armed campaign for autonomy, tapping into the ethnic Rakhine people’s historical resentment over poverty, isolation and central government neglect of the country.

Air defense leaders proved to be smart, disciplined, and capable of motivating their warriors.

They already govern the large swaths of Rakhine state they control as if they were their own state.

They are also well-armed and appear to be well-funded due to their ties to established rebel groups on the Chinese border.

There is a larger question, however, about how willing various ethnic rebel groups are to prioritize the goal of overthrowing the military junta.

They publicly said they would, along with the shadow government that was overthrown by the coup, and hundreds of volunteer YDF troops who turned out to support the coup.

In return for its support for ethnic rebels, the deep state promised a new federal political system that would give Myanmar’s regions autonomy.

But two other members of the Three Brothers Alliance have already accepted China’s ceasefire demands.

China is seeking a negotiated end to the civil war that will almost certainly leave much of the military’s power intact.

The opposition insists the military must be reformed and separated from politics. But after gaining so much territory at the expense of the junta, ethnic rebels may be tempted to strike a deal with Chinese support rather than continue fighting to oust the generals.

The AA’s victory raises even more worrying questions.

The organization’s leadership is tight-lipped about its plans. But the country it takes over has always been poor and has suffered huge losses in fierce fighting over the past year.

A Rohingya man who recently left Maungdaw for Bangladesh told the BBC: “Eighty per cent of the homes in Maungdaw and surrounding villages have been destroyed.”

“The town was deserted and almost all the shops and houses had been looted.”

United Nations agencies have almost no access to Rakhine state and last month warned that famine was looming due to the large number of displaced people and the difficulty of breaking through the military blockade into the state.

The AA is trying to set up its own governing body, but some people displaced by the fighting have told the BBC the organization cannot provide them with food or shelter.

It is unclear how the Arakan Army will treat Rakhine State’s Rohingya population, which is still believed to number around 600,000, or even After deporting 700,000 people in 2017.

The largest number of people live in northern Rakhine State, where Maungdaw has long been a Rohingya-dominated town. Relations with the ethnic Arakan majority, the Arakan Army’s support base, have long been fraught.

Despite the military’s record of persecuting the Rohingya, the situation is now even worse after Rohingya militant groups with a power base in Bangladesh’s vast refugee camps chose to side with the military against the Arakan Army.

Many Rohingya dislike these groups, and some say they are happy to live in Rakhine state.

But the AA has evicted tens of thousands of people from the towns it occupied and is not allowing them to return.

The AA has pledged to include all communities in its vision for a future independent of the central government, but it has also condemned the Rohingya who fight alongside the military.

“We cannot deny the fact that the Rohingya have been persecuted by the Myanmar government for many years, and the Rakhine people support this,” said a Rohingya we interviewed in Bangladesh.

“The government wants to prevent the Rohingya from becoming citizens, but the Rakhine people believe there should be no Rohingya in Rakhine State at all. Our situation today is more difficult than it was under the military government.”