The Karen National Union (KNU) claimed that it killed eight Myanmar military personnel before it seized control of the Kuu Thay Soe outpost in Kyaukkyi Township of Nyaunglebin District, Bago Region, on Sunday. 

“We successfully captured the outpost. It had been under the Burma Army’s military occupation for nearly 50 years,” the KNU said in its statement released on Jan. 9. The KNU armed wing, the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) Brigade 3, led the offensive against the Kuu Thay Soe military outpost on Dec. 31. 

Kyaukkyi is located 102 miles (164 km) north of the region’s capital Bago in an area under the control of the KNU. Resistance forces led by the KNLA captured the Mutel military outpost in Kyaukkyi on Jan. 3. The township serves as an important logistics route for the Myanmar military.

“We have to carefully monitor the situation,” a resident told DVB. The KNU has retaken control over its former headquarters at Manerplaw, located east of the state capital in Hpa-An District along the Myanmar-Thailand border, after it fell to KNLA-led resistance forces on Dec. 16.

The Karen Information Center (KIC) reported that at least five civilians have been killed by artillery strikes carried out by the Myanmar military in Kyaukkyi last week. It added that fighting between the KNLA and the military has displaced hundreds of thousands of residents. 

Fighting continues along the Kawkareik-Myawaddy stretch of the Asia Highway between Karen resistance forces and the military’s Aung Zeya column. A regime counter offensive was launched on April 12 in an attempt to retake the vital trade town of Myawaddy, located 60 miles (96 km) east of Hpa-An along the Myanmar-Thailand border, after it was seized and held by the KNLA for 12 days.