19 May 2026 By Hlaing
SAW, Myanmar — The Myanmar military has launched a coordinated ground and air offensive aimed at capturing the mountainous stronghold of Kanpetlet in southern Chin State, forcing regional humanitarian units to issue emergency evacuation warnings to civilians.
The advancing military column departed the town of Saw in Magway Region on 16 May. By Monday, the troops had breached the strategic six-mile perimeter of Kanpetlet Township. To sustain the rapid mountain ascent, a Y-12 military transport aircraft originating from the Shante Air Base in Meiktila air-dropped at least nine large pallets of provisions directly to the frontline troops.
“The bulk of the infantry unit has pushed straight up into the Chin Hills, leaving only a small rear guard in Saw,” a local field tracker told MPA. “The situation is highly critical because another heavy military column has simultaneously arrived in nearby Laungshe. We are looking at a multi-pronged operation, and residents must remain on maximum alert.”
The Kanpetlet Humanitarian and Disaster Management Department issued an urgent notice on Sunday, advising urban residents to secure their properties and seek immediate refuge in deeper forested zones as fighting is expected to erupt within days.
The offensive is unfolding alongside intense clashes in the neighboring Yaw valley. A second 400-strong junta column from the No. 24 Defense Equipment Factory (Ka-Pa-Sa 24), which occupied Tapyin village on 15 May, remains dug in. Local monitoring networks report that junta fighter jets launched two heavy bombing sorties over the area late Monday, though immediate casualties remain unconfirmed.
The occupation of Tapyin has already been stained by severe human rights abuses. Local information network Yaw Alinn Tan confirmed that soldiers summarily executed Ma Mi Soe, a 34-year-old mentally ill woman who was unable to flee when the column entered the village.
Further complicating the defensive layout, troops from the 368th Artillery Battalion in Kyaukhtu have begun maneuvering east through Ngalun village, while a military convoy of eight trucks packed with fresh reinforcements entered Laungshe town late Saturday from Seikphyu.
“The sheer scale of these troop movements is unprecedented for this season,” a source close to regional resistance networks stated. “With reinforcements pouring in from Pauk, Seikphyu, and Kyaukhtu simultaneously, it is impossible to predict which town they will strike next. They are throwing everything they have into this western corridor.”
The targeted territories are of massive symbolic and strategic value. A powerful coalition of ethnic resistance forces known as the Chin Brotherhood (CB) captured Kanpetlet on 22 December 2024, following the successful liberations of Matupi, Mindat, and Kyindwe earlier that year.
As the junta deploys its vast logistics network to reverse these territorial losses, the rugged junction between Magway Region and the southern Chin Hills is quickly developing into one of the most volatile frontlines in Myanmar’s ongoing civil war.
