Sudden Advances of the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) in early 2025
By: Saw Htee Hser
“Air strikes can disrupt life and cause casualties, but they cannot hold territory. Only ground forces, with public support, can do that. It is for that reason that the Karen army has been able to make rapid gains.”
The various fronts in Myanmar’s civil war tend to flare at different moments. During late 2023 and early 2024, Operation 10/27 by the northern ethnic armies surged in Shan State and Mandalay Division. In late 2024 it was the Arakan Army and Chin defense forces almost completely ridding their states of junta presence and pressing into neighboring regions.
During early 2025 the Karen military has taken the lead, systematically clearing Burmese military occupation out of extended tracts of Kawthoolei, as the Karen nation is called, particularly along the border with Thailand.
Pa’an District, Brigade 7
The Karen military is composed of seven brigades, each corresponding to one of Kawthoolei’s seven districts. Of those, Brigade 7 in Pa’an District (roughly equal to Hpa-an and Hlaingbwe Townships on Burmese maps) was quiescent throughout the current civil war. This was a strategic decision, according to sources within the Kawthoolei government (officially known as the Karen National Union or KNU.) Pa’an District is the most heavily occupied by the Burmese military of the seven, and keeping it clear of fighting allowed the Karen to move people and materials furtively across the Thai border and between adjacent districts, while Brigade 7 supported the brigades in those districts.
This past December, however, the strategy changed. Brigade 7 attacked and captured Manerplaw on Dec. 16. This location, on the Thai border at the northern end of the Pa’an District, was the fabled capital of both Kawthoolei and the pan-Burma ethnic resistance movement from the 1970s to the 1990s. The Kachin, Karenni, and other ethnic self-defense movements maintained a presence at Manerplaw in those days. During a moment of Karen disunity in 1994, the Burmese were able to overrun and destroy their capital, reducing it to an overgrown patch of jungle, and temporarily shattering both Karen resistance and the pan-ethnic movement. The December 16 action of Brigade 7 partially rectified that loss 28 years later. Ceremonies for Karen Revolution Day on January 31 were held once again at Manerplaw, which was symbolically significant for the Karen people.
Brigade 7 was only getting started. In April and May 2025 it attacked and stormed one junta border camp after another. Moving south from Manerplaw, it cleared other camps on April 10, April 18, May 9, May 13, and May 16. Suddenly, the Burmese military disappeared from an extended stretch of the Thai border.
These victories were made easier by the failure of the pro-junta ethnic Karen splinter militia called the Border Guard Force (BGF) to come to the aid of its overlords. Its reasons for abstaining from the fight remain obscure. The BGF has never been an effective fighting force. Its main activities center around illicit business activities in its border crime hubs such as Shwe Kokkol and northern Myawaddy city. There, ethnic Chinese mafias manage thousands of enslaved call center workers who are forced to perpetrate phone and online scams on Chinese and other international victims. Both the BGF and the Burmese military benefit financially from these lucrative crime hubs.
During April 2024, the Karen army briefly took control of part of the border city of Myawaddy, but was expelled by the BGF as the Burmese attacked from the western side, forcing the Karen to turn their attention that way. The BGF, having no political ideals to uphold, nor any particular loyalty to one side or the other, chose opportunistically to side with the Burmese junta, under which it could continue to operate its profitable crime hubs. The KNU would be likely to shut them down. Now, with the junta falling back, the BGF could be hedging its bets in the opposite direction.
If Karen Brigade 7 advances further southward along the border, it will come into contact with the BGF at Shwe Kokkol. What happens then would be highly interesting.
Dooplaya District, Brigade 6
Myawaddy, the main border crossing with Thailand, is in Dooplaya District, the territory of Karen army Brigade 6. It is a major trade and transit point, and is currently under nominal junta control, with the BGF providing military protection against Karen forces. Myawaddy is reached from Burma via the Asia Highway, which approaches from Yangon via Pa’an city, and continues on to Bangkok. The stretch of the Asia Highway closest to Myawaddy has been under the control of the Karen army since late 2023. This stretch includes the Dawna Range, rugged jungle-covered mountains. In April 2024 the Karen overcame the last junta battalions on the eastern (Thai border) side of the Dawna Range, and still holds the western suburbs of the city.
In response to the near-capture of Myawaddy by the Karen army, the junta launched what it called a “national level” offensive in April 24, which it dubbed the Aung Zeya Column after an 18th Century Burmese king who invaded Thailand (unsuccessfully). The junta committed over 1,000 troops as well as armored vehicles to try to retake control of the Asia Highway as far as Myawaddy. The column was personally commanded by deputy dictator General Soe Win.
The Aung Zeya Column managed to quickly expel Karen forces from the towns of Kruh Tuh and Kaw T’Ree, west of the Dawna Range. (They are called Kyondo and Kawkareik on Burmese maps.) Karen Brigade 6, led by its ferocious Cobra Column, massed its defenses in the Dawna mountains. These defenses included howitzer artillery and large gauge mortars captured in earlier battles. From April 2024 to this day, the Aung Zeya Column has been unable to penetrate the Dawna Range, losing hundreds of troops during multiple assaults up the Asia Highway. The road remains in Karen hands.
In fact, the devastating losses of the Aung Zeya Column have left it depleted, surrounded, and broken up into three isolated contingents that are now unable to reinforce each other. That, combined with the increasing systemic weakness of the Burmese junta nationally, has created an opportunity that the Karen are exploiting. With no more reinforcements on the way, the dwindling, scattered remnants of the Aung Zeya Column are at the mercy of Brigade 6, which is currently working on annihilating them and liberating Kruh Tuh and Kaw T’Ree towns.
While that is happening on the Asia Highway, Brigade 6 also suddenly launched a simultaneous assault on four junta border camps south of Myawaddy on May 23. This mirrors Brigade 7’s clearance of camps north of Myawaddy. With the Asia Highway firmly under Karen control, those remaining junta border camps are cut off.
One of those four camps, at Bler Doh, fell almost immediately, yielding an enormous cache of weapons and ammunition for the Karen. Three smaller camps fell later the same week. A larger one at Theh Baw Bo appears to be next. The junta tried to shift 72 troops from another base at Waw Lay to Theh Baw Bo on May 27 – crossing through a neck of Thai territory to get there. The Karen intercepted those reinforcements as they re-entered Kawthoolei on May 28, wiping out the entire column. Reports say about 30 troops were captured alive, 22 were apprehended by the Thai military in Thailand, and the remainder were likely killed.
Without those reinforcements, the fall of Theh Baw Bo, a large camp at Ukrittah, and Waw Lay appears imminent. Then, any remaining junta presence along the border south of Myawaddy would quickly collapse.
If the Aung Zeya remnants and the border camps are cleared, Brigade 6 can turn its full attention to Myawaddy city – the last remaining crossing under junta control on the Kawthoolei-Thailand border.
Beit-Tavoy District, Brigade 4
The region known as Tanintharyi Division on Burmese maps is called Beit-Tavoy or Mergui-Tavoy by the KNU government. It is the long “tail” in peninsular southeastern Burma, narrowly sandwiched between the Indian Ocean on the west and a corresponding coastal sliver of Thailand to the east. Beit-Tavoy is the domain of Karen army Brigade 4.
Brigade 4 has been one of the weakest and least active subdivisions of the Karen army during the post-coup civil war. The district has been largely liberated or contested outside of the main coastal cities, but that work has been done by recently-established ethnic Karen People’s Defense Forces (PDFs), not the Karen army. These PDFs are self-funding and autonomous. During the past year or so, Brigade 4 has gradually become more active, and has begun collaborating with the PDFs.
During early 2025, even Brigade 4 has joined in the stunning advances of the Karen army. On April 12 Brigade 4 and local PDFs assaulted a key junta base at Htee Hta, along the road linking Tavoy city (Dawei in Burmese) to Thailand’s Kanchanaburi Province. After a week of fighting Htee Hta fell to the Karen. That left another junta battalion, at the Htee Khee border crossing, isolated and vulnerable.
Predictably, the Karen followed up their Htee Hta victory with an attack at the border. After two days of fighting Htee Khee also fell to the Karen on May 9. Another border post further south at Mawtaung was already in Karen hands, meaning that they now control the entire border in Beit-Tavoy. The Karen army’s Brigade 5 had previously eliminated junta border camps in Mutraw District to the north of Pa’an. Combined with the border camp clearance taking place in Pa’an and Dooplaya Districts, the seizure of Htee Khee leaves the junta with only Myawaddy on the Thai border, and that with almost no remaining defenses. The implications for control of trade and customs revenue are immense.
Kler Lwi Htoo District, Brigade 3
This is one of three Kawthoolei Districts that doesn’t border on Thailand. The Burmese consider it part of their Bago Division. Since it is more central and close to key north-south transport arteries, it is easier for the junta to resupply its forces there, and also more sensitive due to its infrastructure and proximity to the big cities. The junta has fought to keep the Karen away from the highways and rail line that connect the main city Yangon to the military capital Naypyitaw. The south-flowing Sittaung River has been a de facto boundary, separating the mostly Karen-controlled mountainous terrain to the east from junta-controlled flatlands to the west, where the roads are.
The junta has managed to hold onto the main towns of Ler Doh, Saw Ti, and Moo (called Kyaukgyi, Shwegyin, and Mone on Burmese maps), despite their being to the east of the Sittaung. On the other hand, Karen army Brigade 3 and its PDF allies have raided west of the river, including the highways.
This correspondent was in the vicinity of two battles in April and May, where the Karen army temporarily overran two junta camps on or near the east bank of the Sittaung, capturing many weapons and all-important ammunition, which is often a limiting factor for resistance forces in Burma. The junta suffered heavy casualties in these battles. As always, however, it brought in its air power, inflicting casualties on the Karen and PDFs and forcing them from the captured bases, which were then re-occupied by junta troops. By that time the camps had been destroyed and emptied of food and military supplies. The Karen-led forces now have those camps surrounded again.
While gaining and losing positions may appear fruitless, in fact every action that costs the junta personnel is an increment in its eventual defeat, since manpower is its weakest point. The gain of weapons and precious ammunition is of no small significance to the resistance forces. For these reasons, the battles that progressively deplete the enemy make them worthwhile to the Karen and other resistance forces.
As evidence of the strategic value placed on the Sittaung bases by the junta, it launched a large counter-offensive in mid-May, bringing in about 600 troops by local accounts, to northern Doo Tha Htoo District, adjacent to the Sittaung battles. They are currently in Kyaikto Township, facing the Karen forces in Saw Ti Township. The redeployment of these forces weakens the junta elsewhere.
During this same period, Karen Brigade 3 captured six junta outposts along the road to Ler Doh town from the nearest Sittaung River crossing, in preparation for the eventual liberation of the town.
Taw Oo District, Brigade 2
Taw Oo is Kawthoolei’s northernmost district, and therefore closest to the junta capital Naypyitaw. Its mountainous eastern section is largely liberated except for the main towns and an officer training academy. Like Kler Lwi Htoo, Taw Oo has a western lowland section that is still mostly under junta control.
The large city here is Taungoo, where there is a junta air base that is used to launch deadly airstrikes on both military and civilian targets all over southeastern Burma. Also, the highways linking Yangon to Naypyitaw pass through here. Taw Oo is thus of vital strategic importance to the junta.
The Karen army’s Brigade 2 is relatively small, only a few thousand soldiers, but it has been augmented by three PDF battalions of mostly urban Burmese refugees who came to fight after the 2021 coup attempt. During early 2025 those PDF battalions have been wreaking havoc on the junta around Taungoo city. They ambush junta troop movements and inflict heavy casualties, and at present they are fighting along a section of the main north-south express highway. Perhaps most important, the PDF advances have enabled increased missile attacks on the Taungoo air base.
A PDF called Brave Warriors for Myanmar, which specializes in missile attacks on key strategic targets, fired two separate volleys into the Taungoo air base during April and May 2025. On April 30 BWM sent six of its 107mm shock missiles into the air base and eight more into the junta’s southern regional command headquarters in Taungoo, killing 11 people including 3 officers, wounding others, and damaging an aircraft hangar and officer housing. On May 18 the base was again slammed with eight of BWM’s missiles, damaging 3 airplanes and some infrastructure, and killing 10 base personnel including officers, with 12 others hospitalized. BWM also blasted an officer training school in Taw Oo.
The importance of the attacks on the junta’s air force cannot be overstated. The air terror campaign is the only significant tool remaining in the regime’s inventory, since its ground forces are depleted and consist mostly of ill-trained, inexperienced, and unwilling forced recruits at this point. The airstrikes are intended to scare and intimidate the population into submission. The fact that they don’t, and on the contrary have hardened the resolve of the resistance, still hasn’t dawned on the generals in Naypitaw. When force doesn’t get the results they want, they respond with more of it. Since aerial bombing is the main force they have left, any damage that can be done to the air force brings the end of the war closer. The shooting down of two helicopters by the Kachin army in Banmaw on May 20 is another step in that direction, as are the Arakan Army and Burmese PDF advances toward the junta’s weapons factories in the west.
Air strikes can disrupt life and cause casualties, but they cannot hold territory. Only ground forces, with public support, can do that. It is for that reason that the Karen army has been able to make rapid gains. Certainly a lot remains to be done, such as freeing the larger towns. In Kawthoolei, at least, the process of clearing enemy occupation and establishing self-governance has been accelerating.
Weapons captured at the Bler Doh camp in Dooplaya District, Kawthoolei, Maya 23. Photo courtesy of the Karen National Union, KNLA Cobra Column, and Federal Wings.
Saw Htee Hser is the wartime moniker of an American humanitarian worker turned war reporter operating in Kawthoolei since 2019. He publishes the weekly progress report called Burma Coup Resistance Notes on Substack.