Myanmar's army is losing - and facing fire from a militant monk

Last Tuesday, a noisy crowd of several hundred people stood in the small main square of Pyin Oo Lwin, a popular Myanmar hill town, to hear a bespectacled monk make a startling suggestion.

Min Aung Hlaing, the country's military ruler, should step aside, he said, and let his deputy General Soe Win take over.

The man who led the 2021 coup against the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, provoking a catastrophic civil war, has faced plenty of international censure, and is loathed by much of Myanmar's population.

This though was criticism from an unusual quarter. The monk, Pauk Ko Taw, is part of an ultra-nationalist fringe of the Buddhist clergy, which has until now been staunchly behind the military junta.

But a series of crushing defeats suffered by the army at the hands of ethnic insurgents in recent weeks has prompted Min Aung Hlaing's one-time cheerleaders to reconsider.

"Look at Soe Win's face," Pauk Ko Taw said to the crowd. "That's the face of a real soldier. Min Aung Hlaing is not coping. He should move to a civilian role."

It is not clear what kind of backing Pauk Ko Taw has in the armed forces. But his comments echo those made by other junta supporters, who are increasingly frustrated by the seeming inability of Myanmar's military leaders to turn the tide against their opponents. Pauk Ko Taw declined to be interviewed by BBC Burmese.

That he chose to give his speech in Pyin Oo Lwin will have added weight to it. The one-time British colonial hill-station is now home to the prestigious Defence Services Academy, where the army's top brass are trained. They could hardly miss the thinly-veiled warning: that they are running out of friends.

The nexus between the military and monkhood is nothing new.

Burmese monks have