Ethnic Karen guerrillas in Myanmar leave a town that army lost 2 weeks ago as rival group holds sway

BANGKOK (AP) — Guerrilla fighters from the main ethnic Karen fighting force battling Myanmar’s military government have withdrawn from the eastern border town of Myawaddy two weeks after forcing the army to give up its defense, residents and members of the group said Wednesday.

Their withdrawal came after a contending armed Karen group, which has occupied the town and claimed responsibility for its security, provided assistance to army soldiers who had fled to a riverside spot there for safety.

The soldiers came from the army’s Infantry Battalion 275, whose base, about 4 kilometers (3 miles) to the west of Myawaddy, was captured on April 11 by the armed wing of the Karen National Union —- or KNU — and allied pro-democracy forces.

The fleeing soldiers reestablished themselves in an area next to one of Myawaddy’s two bridges connecting it to Thailand’s Mae Sot district.

The complicated maneuvering is the latest development in the nationwide conflict in Myanmar that began after the army ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021 and suppressed widespread nonviolent protests that sought a return to democratic rule.

Despite its advantage in arms and manpower, Myanmar’s army had been on the defensive since last October, when an alliance of three ethnic rebel groups launched an offensive in the country’s northeast. Resistance forces since then have captured major swaths of territory in northern Shan state on the border with China, made significant gains in Rakhine state in the west, and continue to pressure the army elsewhere.

The soldiers now encamped next to the 2nd Thai-Myanmar Friendship Bridge were given at least tacit protection there by Kayin state’s Border Guard Force, another armed Karen group