Khun Sa Army Claims Battlefield Vic

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/* Written 12:33 pm  May 13, 1994 by cesloane@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx in igc:bitl.seasia */
/* ---------- "Khun Sa Army Claims Battlefield Vic" ---------- */
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>Subject: Khun Sa Army Claims Battlefield Victories in Burma
>Copyright: 1994 by Reuters, R
>Date: Fri, 13 May 94 0:10:36 PDT

         BANGKOK, Thailand (Reuter) - Troops of ``Golden Triangle''
drug warlord Khun Sa captured six military outposts and killed
dozens of people in recent battles with government forces in
northeast Burma, a guerrilla spokesman said Friday.
         ``Reports from the battlefield have said our soldiers
overran six Burmese positions and killed dozens,'' a spokesman
for Khun Sa's Mong Tai Army (MTA) told Reuters by telephone.
         There was no immediate confirmation of the claims.
         At least five MTA soldiers were killed in heavy fighting on
Wednesday morning, Khun Sa's spokesman said.
         He said six of seven government outposts in the northeastern
town of Mong Kyawt were captured during the five-hour pre-dawn
attack.
         Thousands of troops have battled each other across the banks
of the Salween river, running through Burma's northeastern Shan
State, since last November after Burmese government soldiers
launched an offensive against Khun Sa.
         Khun Sa's stronghold is in Ho Mong, a town between the
Salween and Shan state's long border with Thailand.
         Khun Sa controls a large section of one of the most
productive poppy-growing areas in the world in the Golden
Triangle, where the borders of Burma, Laos and Thailand meet.
Poppies produce opium from which heroin is derived.
         A veteran Shan politician now living in Bangkok said he had
heard government forces had recently occupied the area around
Mong Kyawt. He could not confirm the reports the MTA had
recaptured it.
         ``If the Burmese control Mong Kyawt they could easily reach
Khun Sa's second stronghold of Peing Luang,'' he said.
         A Thai army source based in Chieng Doa district on the
Thai-Burmese border said he believed hundreds of people had fled
the fighting.
         Khun Sa, alias Chang Si-fu, 60, is one of the most wanted
men in the United States after a New York court indicted him on
heroin trafficking charges.
         Khun Sa denies he is a drug trafficker, saying he only taxes
the opium trade as he would any other commodity. He maintains
his MTA army is fighting for Shan state's independence from
Rangoon.
         Thai and U.S. narcotics officials say his army's main
function is to provide security for his drugs business.
         Several political analysts and former foes have indicated
that Khun Sa's army is gaining more and more legitimacy as the
rebel army of the Shans, who see themselves as politically and
ethnically distinct from the Burmese.
         Shan nationalists have campaigned, and at times battled, for
autonomy from Rangoon since the 1950s.
         The veteran Shan politician, a long-time critic of Khun Sa,
said the sentiment of the Shan people was moving in Khun Sa's
favour as the only option left to them.
         ``The Shan people are putting pressure on Khun Sa to fight