The rebel fighters who abandoned Falam in Myanmar in April said they gave up the border town near India only after running out of bullets.
The fighters had endured a six-month assault by Myanmar’s military, including hundreds of air strikes and a ground assault by roughly ۱,۰۰۰ troops. The fall of the town, which had been under opposition control for a year, marked a strategic victory for the military: Falam is home to the only airport in Chin State and commands a trade route to the Indian border.
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Within weeks, three more towns in Chin had fallen, and by late May, the military was claiming control of the entire northern part of the state.
“Falam taught us an important lesson,” said Salai William Chin, a member of the rebel Chin Brotherhood. “Capturing a town and holding it are two very different challenges,” he told Al Jazeera. “Holding it for a long period required manpower, logistics, administration, civilian protection and the ability to withstand repeated attacks, especially from the air.”
The retreat is part of a broader reversal across Myanmar.
The country’s opposition – a loose coalition of militias and ethnic armed organisations fighting the military that seized power in a ۲۰۲۱ coup – has been weakened. Their gains in ۲۰۲۳ and ۲۰۲۴, when coordinated offensives stripped the military of dozens of towns, have given way to a steady withdrawal from the urban centres they had captured.
Analysts say the shift has been driven by several factors: a mass conscription drive that has refilled the military’s ranks with tens of thousands of troops, a devastating air campaign that has killed hundreds of civilians, and backing from China, which has brokered ceasefires between the military and some powerful ethnic armed groups while helping choke off weapons supplies to others.
Capture of strategic towns
The war, which began in the wake of a military coup in February ۲۰۲۱, is now in its fifth year. It began following a brutal crackdown on unarmed protesters, with young people taking up arms and forming militias known as the People’s Defence Forces (PDF). They were aided by powerful armed ethnic organisations who control Myanmar’s borderlands, some of which have fought for autonomy since the country’s founding in ۱۹۴۸.
According to Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) project, deaths in the conflict have now surpassed ۱۰۰,۰۰۰, while the United Nations says ۳.۹ million people have been displaced and an estimated one in three people requires humanitarian assistance.
Earlier this year, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, who led the ۲۰۲۱ power grab, presided over tightly controlled elections, with major opposition parties barred from participating and voting impossible, or boycotted, across much of the country. He was sworn in as president in April, completing his passage from commander-in-chief to head of a nominally civilian government in Naypyidaw.
Min Aung Hlaing now says his government wants peace talks with armed opponents, including in Chin.
But the fighting continues.
The military has opened new operations this year in Chin, Kachin, Kayin and Rakhine States, and according to ISP-Myanmar, an independent think tank, it has now retaken ۲۲ of the ۱۰۱ towns it lost after the coup. That amounts to ۹ percent of the lost territory, but the areas are strategically located and include key trade corridors linking border areas to central Myanmar, where the military’s main bases are located.
Their capture has disrupted the “economic and logistical capacity of many resistance groups,” Su Mon, an analyst at ACLED, wrote in a recent briefing note. While the military has yet to fully restore its own administration in these areas, she said, “the victories have effectively hindered resistance coordination,” pushing opposition groups “away from large-scale coordinated offensives to defensive guerrilla warfare”.
Still, the military is unlikely to score “existential or politically decisive wins” against the opposition, she added, warning that the country “faces a protracted war of attrition” in the coming months.
The Myanmar military has lauded the battlefield wins.
Speaking in Bangkok this month, Min Aung Hlaing said Myanmar was “on the path of democracy and heading towards a better future”, while state media has run photographs of what it described as triumphant troops returning from operations around the country.
‘Unchallenged air power’
Anthony Davis, a Bangkok-based security analyst, said a mass conscription drive and Chinese support have proven pivotal for the military.
Close to ۱۵۰,۰۰۰ troops have been added to its combat ranks since ۲۰۲۴ through conscription, he said, with many of the conscripts barely trained, but numerous enough to grind forward.
Pressure from China has pulled two powerful opposition forces, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, out of the fight, freeing the military to redeploy troops elsewhere. Beijing also pressed the United Wa State Army, one of Myanmar’s strongest ethnic armed groups, to stop selling weapons to opposition groups, contributing to ammunition shortages nationwide.
“Unchallenged airpower has from the beginning of the war provided the [military] with a crucial advantage,” Davis added, both in resupplying troops and in carrying out attacks against opposition forces. At the same time, “the rapid proliferation of drone technology in both surveillance and strike roles, along with improved battlefield coordination between different combat arms, have boosted [the military’s] capability”, he said.
The air campaign’s toll on civilians has been severe.
The Myanmar Internet Project counted ۵۲۰ air strikes from April through June, hitting ۸۷ townships and killing at least ۳۱۴ civilians, including ۴۱ children. Chin State was hit hardest, with ۱۲۲ strikes, followed by Sagaing with ۱۰۱, and Rakhine with ۹۸.
Phil Robertson, the director of Asia Human Rights and Labour Advocates organisation, said that “the inability of the resistance to counter the military’s air superiority” had weakened drive among opposition forces.
“Air attacks demoralise PDFs and other resistance troops, and scatter civilians who have supported the rebels,” he told Al Jazeera.
‘We will keep on going’
Still, the anti-military forces insist that the war is not lost.
Thinzar Shunlei Yi, an activist living in exile, said opposition networks are still training organisers and building support. “Even in the face of mass murder, in the face of massive violations, we have that courage and integrity that we resist, and we reject,” she said. “Myanmar people keep up that spirit, and we will keep on going.”
In Chin, Salai William Chin remained resolute.
“We do have further plans, but it is still too early to speak publicly about them,” he said. “I would not say that airpower has permanently decided the battlefield. It remains a serious challenge, but warfare continues to evolve, and resistance forces also continue to learn and adapt.”
The opposition’s success should not be measured “only by whether we permanently hold every town,” he added.
“Where the military has a significant advantage, especially through airpower, mobile warfare may sometimes be more effective. The important thing is to preserve our forces, protect civilians and maintain our ability to continue the struggle,” he said.
