Daily Times

On the outskirts of Mandalay, nervous Myanmar soldiers man a checkpoint just kilometres away from rebels who have set their sights on the former royal capital of 1.5 million people.

Ethnic minority rebels and “People’s Defence Forces” battling to overturn the junta’s 2021 coup are riding the wave of a huge offensive launched a year ago Sunday in the hills of neighbouring Shan state. Weeks ago, residents could hear the sounds of clashes along the road that leads out of the country’s second city. “We are afraid of the fighting coming here but we have nowhere to hide,” said one man who owns a food shop near the checkpoint and requested anonymity for security reasons. “Operation 1027”, named for its start date, has ejected the junta from around 50,000 square kilometres — an area roughly the size of Bosnia — according to analysts and an AFP tally.

The spoils include a string of towns along a lucrative trade highway to northern neighbour China, along with most of western Rakhine state, home to a proposed Beijing-backed deep-sea port on the Indian Ocean.