Explainers
Inside ‘Operation 1027’, the anti-junta offensive in Myanmar
Operation 1027, so named for the date and month of its launch, has seen the Brotherhood Alliance capture over 300 junta bases and 20 towns across three states and two regions. Experts say rebels have risen up everywhere and this could be a 'defining moment' for Myanmar
FP Explainers December 15, 2023 16:22:15 IST
Members of the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army pose for a photograph with the weapons allegedly seized from the Myanmar's army outpost on a hill in Chinshwehaw town, Myanmar on 28 October, 2023. AP
Anti-government forces in October had dealt a devastating blow to the Myanmar junta with a wave of simultaneous attacks – arguably leaving it facing its biggest threat since it came to power in a 2021 coup.
Now, with the conflict raging nearly two months later, the junta remains on the back foot.
Let’s take a closer look at the anti-junta offensive of the Brotherhood Alliance which comprises –the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance, Ta’ang National Liberation Army and Arakan Army – as well as other ethnic groups.
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What happened?
Anti-junta operations have since rapidly expanded to other parts of Myanmar, with battles in the central region of Sagaing as well as in states near India and Bangladesh.
Operation 1027 – so named for the date and month of its launch – has seen the Brotherhood Alliance capture over 300 junta bases and 20 towns across three states and two regions, as per Irrawady.com.
Simultaneous attacks to dislodge the regime from northern Shan State have occurred in Sagaing, Mandalay and Magwe regions and Chin State.
Meanwhile, the People’s Defense Forces (PDFs) supported by the Kachin Independence Army captured three towns in Sagaing.
Other resistance forces took another seven towns in Chin State.
Adding to the junta’s woes, the Karenni Nationalities Defense Force (KNDF), Karenni Army, Karenni National People’s Liberation Front and PDFs also launched Operation 1111 on 11 November.
The KNDF claims anti-junta forces, since the launch of Operation 1111, have taken 35 junta base in Karenni State’s Loikaw and Demoso townships and in neighboring Pekon Township in southern Shan State.
Karen and Mon states and Bago Region also witnessed a slew of attacks against the junta.
On 3 December, Mone Town in Bago Region was overrun by the Karen National Liberation Army and allied resistance forces, as per Irrawady.com.
Operation 1027 began in northern Shan State, abutting the border with China, where troops led by the Three Brotherhood Alliance – which comprises MNDAA, the Ta’ang National Liberation Army and the Arakan Army (AA) – said they captured around 150 military outposts, five towns and four border gates within a month.
Independent analysts consider those figures reliable and the junta, which has not addressed specifics about battlefield defeats, has acknowledged some loss of control.
Among the rebel forces was the multi-ethnic Brigade 611, said MNDAA’s Kyaw Naing.
Reuters interviewed a dozen resistance officials with knowledge of the operation, as well as analysts and other people familiar with the matter. Some spoke on condition of anonymity because the offensive is ongoing.
Two members of the Three Brotherhood Alliance together with five other armed groups formed the new Brigade 611 in early 2022, four rebel officials told Reuters. The formation’s strength numbers in the “thousands”, one of them said.
It was a display of unprecedented cooperation among outfits that come from different parts of Myanmar, speak different languages and traditionally have had different priorities, according to a November report from the US Institute of Peace (USIP), a Washington-based think-tank focused on conflict prevention and resolution.
The formation includes troops from entities supported by the parallel civilian government as well as fighters from the AA, one of Myanmar’s most powerful ethnic armed forces, and the Bamar People’s Liberation Army (BPLA), a newer militia drawn mostly from the country’s majority Bamar people, officials from those groups confirmed.
Photos of Brigade 611 posted by an MNDAA-affiliated outlet in January show hundreds of troops in battle fatigues gathering for a graduation ceremony. Officials watched from a marquee, under a red banner with Burmese script and Chinese characters.
Some Brigade 611 troops drilled in using drones ahead of the operation, said Lin Lin.
In several areas, rebel groups are supported by the People’s Defence Forces (PDF), a movement backed by the civilian National Unity Government (NUG) that includes representatives of Suu Kyi’s administration.
The NUG claims control over parts of the country and has worked on diplomatically isolating the junta.
In Mandalay, a major city that is the gateway to the northern territories, the local PDF is tasked with stalling military reinforcements to the frontline, its spokesman said.
The NUG supports over 300 PDF units under its command using money raised by taxation, bond sales and other methods, finance minister Tin Tun Naing said.
Suu Kyi remains in detention in the capital, Naypyidaw.
What is the junta doing?
The junta cracked down on protests after the coup, sparking a grassroots rebellion and re-igniting conflict with some ethnic armies. The military, known as the Tatmadaw, has ruled Myanmar for five of the past six decades, and its soldiers are feared for their brutality and scorched earth tactics.
In a 29 November speech, junta leader General Min Aung Hlaing said the fighting near the border originated from long-standing issues and the military was focused on combating insurgents “for peace and stability in the region.”
The regime has since held China-facilitated talks with the Three Brotherhood Alliance, a junta spokesman said on 11 December without providing further details.
The junta in mid-November admitted it came ‘under heavy attack’ in Shan State in the north, Kayah State in the east and Rakhine State in the west, as per Al Jazeera.
Beijing said it supports such talks, while the alliance said on Wednesday it remains determined to defeat the “dictatorship”.
As per Outlook, some Chinese soldiers have also been killed in the fighting along the border.
What has been the fallout?
As per Outlook, over 2,000 Myanmar citizens have fled to India through via the International Border in Mizoram.
The UN human rights office said since last month’s spike in fighting, 70 civilians have been killed and 90 injured.
Another 200,000 people have been displaced – bringing the total to aroud 1.7 million people since the junta took power in 2021.
China, a key junta ally that also has close relations with some ethnic Chinese militias in the borderlands, has been riled by Myanmar’s inability to shut down online scam centres along the frontier that have become a scourge across Southeast Asia.
As of October, more than 20,000 people, mainly Chinese, were being held in over 100 compounds in northern Myanmar, where the workers – many of them trafficked – defraud strangers over the internet, according to a USIP estimate.
The centres have become a major public security challenge for China and Chinese officials delivered an ultimatum in Beijing this September to their Myanmar counterparts: eliminate the compounds or China would do so, according to a person briefed on their meeting.
Numerous scam centres were caught up in the recent fighting, allowing many foreign nationals who had been trapped to flee.
China’s Ministry of Public Security heavily promoted social media posts on the arrests of alleged Myanmar scammers, gathering millions of views.
The Xinhua state news agency said the scam centres, many operated in enclaves run by junta-aligned forces, “seriously infringed on the property, security and legitimate rights and interests of the Chinese people.”
This summer, “No More Bets”, a Chinese film about a couple from the country trafficked to a scam centre in an unnamed Southeast Asian country, grossed nearly $530 million domestically.
In recent months, Beijing raised the issue in multiple bilateral meetings, according to two people briefed on the talks and Chinese state media.
The operation came amid rising anger in Beijing with the junta over rampant crime on the border, which created conditions that supported the blitzkrieg, according to two analysts.
Scot Marciel, a former US ambassador to Myanmar, said the ethnic armed groups were not acting as Beijing’s direct proxies in carrying out Operation 1027, “but the Chinese weren’t troubled that they did it – at least the initial attacks on the scam centers”.
Zhu, the Chinese security counsel, said China was friendly with both the junta and the resistance.
If two friends fight, he said, “I have no choice but to not help either side. But if anyone hurts China’s core interest, I will help its opponent.”
A senior Chinese diplomat said in November that Beijing doesn’t interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, but urged Myanmar to protect Chinese residents and personnel, and to cooperate in ensuring stability along the border.
What do experts say?
Rebel ground troops often launch attacks following drone strikes, a tactic that has “become a game-changer” for them, said Khun Bedu, leader of Karenni Nationalities Defence Force (KNDF), which now controls parts of the frontier with Thailand and also contributed to Brigade 611.
The closer coordination means the rebels have risen “up everywhere and the junta doesn’t have enough military forces to handle them,” said Zhu Jiangming, a security counsel at the Asian Development Bank who has written about the border situation.
Rebels aided by “foreign drone experts” used over 25,000 drone-dropped bombs during the offensive, forcing some military posts to be abandoned due to “excessive strength” of resistance fighters, Min Aung Hlaing said in November.
The Three Brotherhood Alliance did not respond to a request for comment on whether they used foreign experts.
A piece in The Diplomat argued that Operation 1027 is a ‘defining moment’ for Myanmar. “This operation is not merely a military offensive; it is also a symbol of the enduring spirit and resourcefulness of Myanmar’s peoples and their People’s Defense Forces (PDFs), their burgeoning alliances with the country’s long-established ethnic armed organizations (EAOs), and the unflagging public support for the struggle,” the pierce argued.
“Analysts predicting a swift end to offensives upon external interventions, particularly from China, fail to grasp the depth of the internal dynamics and the state of national sentiment in Myanmar. China’s role, while significant, does not overshadow the socio-political will of the Myanmar peoples, which ultimately will dictate the course of the revolution,” the piece concluded.
Despite these setbacks, the Myanmar military – one of the largest in Southeast Asia – has sizeable resources and a “determination to prevail at all costs,” said Richard Horsey, a senior adviser at the non-profit International Crisis Group.
With inputs from agencies