From Pattaya News

The Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) and allies launched a joint assault on Myanmar’s strategic Mapali base in Bilin, Mon State, on February 1st. The attack lasted just 30 minutes before Myanmar troops reportedly surrendered.

KNLA forces captured 29 Myanmar soldiers and seized a large cache of weapons, including an M109 howitzer with ammunition. At least 40 Myanmar soldiers were killed in the battle.
According to sources from the KNLA, the assault involved mortar fire and continuous drone strikes, forcing Myanmar troops into retreat. Many reportedly surrendered without resistance due to a lack of reinforcements from the Southeast Regional Command.

 

Karen National Union (KNU) officials confirmed that captured soldiers were being held under humane conditions, and being provided with food and water. Karen forces have gained control over multiple Myanmar military positions, particularly in Karen State.

Myanmar has been embroiled in civil war for years now between the military junta and multiple ethnic groups.

https://thepattayanews.com/2025/02/04/karen-forces-capture-key-myanmar-military-base-in-mon-state/

It's all so terrible, but I hope the KNLA wins out in the end.

I was imagining this:

I congratulate @reader for raising this issue but am utterly appalled at @unicorn's post. The civil war in Myanmar has been going on virtually unchecked for almost 8 decades with successive military juntas involved in the most ghastly crimes. I have been doing extensive research for a book which is the only reason I am responding here. Following yet another democratic election in November 2020, the junta mounted yet another of its regular coups less than three months later. The following are examples of what @unicorn seems to regard as an item for fun.

"Reports have provided gruesome details of some of the army’s horrendous atrocities since the 2021 coup, including the bloody suppression of anti-coup groups. Individuals believed to be part of the resistance have also been targeted, whether or not they had in fact belonged to that resistance. In May 2022, military forces entered the Buddhist monastery in the village of Mongdaingbin, forcibly conscripted all the young men hiding there, took them outside and then executed them in front of a stupa. 

"Torture has been routinely practised by the junta. This is especially true when villagers and others in the local militias are believed to have been responsible for attacks on military forces. In November 2023 two young farmers aged 23 and 22, Phoe Tay and Thar Htaung, who had joined the resistance were captured, interrogated, dragged through the streets in chains, had gasoline poured over them, been suspended from a tree and had fires lit under them. As up to 100 villagers were forced to watch, the silence was broken only by the crackle of the flames and the screams of the two men who were little more than boys. Someone took a video of this horror and leaked it to a local media outlet, Khit Thit Media. Given the triumphal nature of the voice-over, it is assumed the video had to have been taken by one of the junta’s forces. Yet on March 5 2024, the junta was still denying the burning of the two men.

Phoe Tae and Thar Htaung: photos from the families

"Remarkably, the families of the two men, despite the horror of their sons’ deaths and their unimaginable grief, had not objected to their joining the resistance. Phoe Tae had been especially smart at school where he earned two distinctions for entering university. During an interview with his father for Radio Free Asia Burma on February 19 2024, Myint Zaw told the reporter, “We could not retrieve the body. Nobody could go there because Myauk Khin Yan is a stronghold village of the pro-junta Pyu Saw Htee militias . . . I haven’t watched the video because of poor internet connections. His friends in the village are horrified by it. ‘Is it true? They really did that?’ . . . I told my son that if I was your age I would already have joined the resistance. My son and I had the same opinion . . . I am proud my son sacrificed for the people and the country. But I feel sad. I am devastated.”

"Thar Htuang’s father, Soe Linn, appeared more stoic. He told the interviewer, “My son sacrificed his life for the good of the country and I am proud. I would never cry for him.”

"By that time the number of atrocities had increased, including the use of civilian hostages as human shields. Myanmar-born American Dr. Miemie Winn Byrd, a retired US Army Lt. Col. and professor at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, stated 'the Myanmar military is no longer a professional military. It is a criminal gang, a militant criminal gang.' According to a Report at the end of February 2024 the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk described the years of army rule having inflicted “unbearable levels of suffering and cruelty” and as being an “unending nightmare”. Human Rights Watch calls the situation in Myanmar a 'humanitarian catastrophe.'

"Two other worrying issues should perhaps be noted. Last month in a court in New York a member of the Japanese yakuza pleaded guilty to attempting to traffic uranium and weapons-grade plutonium from Myanmar. Russia has had a long-term agreement with Myanmar to develop a nuclear reactor. The assumed destination for the materials is thought to have been Iran. As @reader has indicated in another post, Thailand has cut electricity to part of its border area. The reason is that financial scam centres have mushroomed on the Myanmar side of the border with up to 250,000 young people illegally trafficked, mostly from Asian countries, to operate them. By the end of 2023, the United States Institute for Peace estimated these scam activities had netted US$64 billion. Originally they were based in the border of the Shan State further north. With Chinese help these were slowly cleaned out, but the gansters just moved them fast to another area in Kayin State."

Having stated over a year ago that I would no longer contribute, I apologise for breaking that vow. I do however continue to read the site which is always of interest.

1 hour ago, PeterRS said:

I congratulate @reader for raising this issue but am utterly appalled at @unicorn's post.

+1

I have had opportunities to talk to Myanmar workers and refugees working illegally in Thailand, The situation they are in, plus worries for their families left behind, are very moving. The civil war there is not something we should make light of.

And I hope @PeterRS resumes participation in the forum. I'm sure I speak for others too when I say he was missed.

So @unicorn compounds his dreadful stupidity by giving my post a laughing emoji. That tells us a great deal more about him than any post would. 8 decades of one of the most ghastly wars against its own peoples is to him just a joke! It takes all sorts!

4 hours ago, PeterRS said:

So @unicorn compounds his dreadful stupidity by giving my post a laughing emoji. That tells us a great deal more about him than any post would. 8 decades of one of the most ghastly wars against its own peoples is to him just a joke! It takes all sorts!

Oh, get off your high horse.

I can guarantee you that if you talk to 99.99% of Americans, they've never heard of any Karens other than bitchy complainers. Stop taking yourself so seriously. 

33 minutes ago, unicorn said:

I can guarantee you that if you talk to 99.99% of Americans, they've never heard of any Karens other than bitchy complainers. Stop taking yourself so seriously.  

You have just made yourself look even more ridiculous! Did not @reader's original post mention "soldiers, weapons, mortar fire, ammunition, drone strikes, civil war for years now"? You may not have heard of the Karen rebels but it was perfectly clear that the OP was about a war. You clearly had no desire to check. Instead you just made up your mind that war is a subject for mirth of the siliest, childish kind! And after my post with details of the absolute horror meted out to two young men who were burned alive, all you can talk about is "high horses"! That is a total disgrace! Shame on you!

4 hours ago, unicorn said:

Oh, get off your high horse.

I can guarantee you that if you talk to 99.99% of Americans, they've never heard of any Karens other than bitchy complainers. Stop taking yourself so seriously. 

That says a lot about Americans.

4 hours ago, unicorn said:

I can guarantee you that if you talk to 99.99% of Americans, they've never heard of any Karens other than bitchy complainers.

But you don't have that excuse, so what's your point? "A quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing" ?

On 2/10/2025 at 7:23 AM, unicorn said:

I was imagining this:

No surprise that the first "like" on this idiotic post came from some fellow who regularly seems to speak out of his distended rear end. Birds of a feather flock together. Idiots give likes to idiotic comments. 👇👇👇

8 hours ago, Department_Of_Agriculture said:

Idiots give likes to idiotic comments. 👇👇👇

 

You're right..... why you drinking so early, frustrated and alone again?

I'm kind of impressed that you talk about my ass so much.....seeing that you like hairless child sized dicks like a pedo does....or will that hit you too close to home because you deflect that others in Pattaya are like that ☠️

11 hours ago, thaiophilus said:

But you don't have that excuse, so what's your point? "A quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing" ?

+1

"And I hope @PeterRS resumes participation in the forum. I'm sure I speak for others too when I say he was missed."

+1