Were Foreign Nationals and Myanmar Rebel Groups Plotting an Attack Against India?

Myanmar EAOs and Indian Rebel Outfits

Many rebel groups from India’s Northeast are engaged in Myanmar’s civil war in different capacities. The Meitei separatist outfits from Manipur’s Imphal Valley – the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), both the factions of People’s Republican Party of Kangleipak (PREPAK), Kanna Yawol Kanna Lup (KYKL), and the hardline faction of United National Liberation Front (UNLF) – have joined hands with the Myanmar military against the resistance groups active in Sagaing Region, which are mostly from the Burmese and Kuki-Chin-Mizo ethnic communities.  

The Kuki-Chin-Mizo groups from India’s Manipur that are most active in Myanmar include the Kuki National Army (KNA) and Zomi Revolutionary Army (ZRA). While the KNA has pulled out all the stops to fight against the Myanmar military, in cooperation with other organizations, the latter has charted a different route by collaborating with the military, similar to the groups from Imphal Valley. There have been instances of conflicts between the ZRA and anti-military resistance groups over the past five years. Both the ZRA and KNA have ceasefire agreements with the Indian government.  

Another insurgent organization from India’s Northeast active on both sides of the border is the Isak-Muivah faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (NSCN-IM), which had inked a ceasefire agreement in 1997 with the Indian government. There are reports alleging that the NSCN(IM) has begun colluding with the Myanmar military against the resistance groups. Last year, at a zone along Manipur’s border with Myanmar, the group was engaged in a clash with the KNA for several days, resulting in high casualties on both sides. 

The separatist independent faction of United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA-I) from the state of Assam has camps in north Sagaing Region. However, it has no association with any resistance group combatting the Myanmar military.  

Several resistance groups from Myanmar’s Chin State and Sagaing Region have links in Manipur and Mizoram. The twin Indian states, especially Mizoram, have hosted thousands of refugees from Myanmar since the coup five years ago. While Mizoram has welcomed the refugees, owing to ethnic similarities, Manipur has been hostile and had also deported batches of them to Myanmar over the past four years. So currently whatever linkages these groups have are mostly with Mizoram.  

On a few occasions in the past, Myanmar nationals have been arrested with explosives and weapons, but there was no evidence of any association with rebel groups in India’s Northeast.    

Visits by Foreign Nationals to Myanmar

Foreign nationals have been surreptitiously visiting Myanmar’s conflict hotspots since 2021, when the democratically elected government was toppled by the military. The covert entries were made either from Thailand or from India’s Mizoram. Different categories of people had crossed over during the past five years including expatriates, mercenaries, intelligence operatives, journalists with specific tasks, and academics on rare occasions. 

In 2023, I spent 21 days traveling through Myanmar’s Chin State and Sagaing Region. In that time, I came across three foreign nationals from India, Thailand, and the U.S. outside the rebel camps in different locations. The citizens from India and Thailand were engaged with the resistance movement in non-military roles. The U.S. national was examining options to revive a micro-hydroelectric project in association with locals in a backward and remote village that was outside of junta’s control. It was difficult to ascertain if there were foreign nationals in the rebel camps.

The next year, in 2024, during my subsequent visit to a zone along the border, I gathered information about the presence of foreign nationals who were former employees of the armed forces of their countries. They were training newly recruited functionaries in the organization. However, I was requested by the leaders of the group not to write about them. 

The fact that foreign nationals were engaged in training Myanmar’s resistance groups had surfaced in many media reports. A news report published on December 21, 2022 quoted a commander of the Chin National Defense Force (CNDF) as saying that the “VAKOK Battalion” of the outfit was receiving “training from a U.S. armed forces veteran in Sagaing Region’s Kale Township.” The commander, who identified himself as Uk Pi, explained that the trainer was born in Myanmar and retired from the U.S. Army. He had volunteered to train other resistance groups as well. 

The People’s Defense Force Zoland (PDF Zoland) posted a photo on social media on May 11, 2024 showing two foreign volunteers from the United States alongside a British volunteer who had joined the resistance movement. 

So, foreign nationals providing training to the resistance groups in Myanmar is not a new phenomenon. In all likelihood, those who were spotted in Chin State and Sagaing Region had crossed over from India, back when it was not mandatory for foreign nationals to obtain a Restricted Area Permit (RAP) to visit Mizoram. The RAP was relaxed in 2011 to boost tourism in Mizoram and two more northeastern states but reimposed early last year owing to “growing security concerns” of the Indian government.  

With this background in mind, let’s return to the recent case. 

Was There a Terror Plot Against India? 

There have been multiple reports over the past couple of days quoting Indian security agency officials as saying that an international terrorist network had been unearthed involving six Ukrainians and a U.S. citizen who were plotting attacks targeting India. As I have myself experienced while working in Delhi, confirming the veracity of reports received from the security agencies on far-off regions is difficult. Stories are planted with specific objectives through journalists who are already identified in advance. 

There were doubtless precise objectives in this episode as well, and the input that there was a terror plot against India was too tempting for media outlets not to broadcast. Such stories always raise television ratings. At times, editors working for outlets affiliated to fundamentalist organizations even come under pressure to twist the stories to further their propaganda.   

The fact of the matter is that no resistance group in Myanmar fighting the military, either from Chin State or Sagaing Region, would plan terror attacks against India. Most of these groups are pro-India and for valid reasons. 

The entire border zone of Myanmar from Kachin to Chin State – spanning a long-distance of 1,643 kilometers (1,021 miles) and skirting the Indian states of Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram – is among the most underdeveloped in the country and has always been dependent on India for survival. These regions have emerged as hotspots of resistance against the military in Myanmar. Their dependence on India has increased after the military coup in 2021 since most of the supply routes from mainland Myanmar have been blocked. Whatever commodities reach these areas are ferried from India through secret routes from the mainland of the country that keep on changing. Every day, large consignments of food grains, medicines, petrol, and other commodities are transported to these regions from India’s Northeast.  

The concept of a terror plot by Myanmar resistance groups gains relevance in the context of the situation in the Indian state of Manipur, where ethnic strife between the majority Meitei and the Kuki-Zo communities since mid-2023 has claimed 260 lives and rendered thousands homeless. The conflict was unique in the quantity of weapons looted from police armories; likewise, the use of drones and bunkers were unprecedented in India. Some of these incidents bear the imprint of the tactics utilized by resistance groups in Myanmar against the military.  

There is concern that some resistance groups in Myanmar are providing support to the Kuki-Zomi communities in Manipur, and that infiltration has changed the demography of the state. Against that backdrop, it is a short step to the fear that drones belonging to the Kuki-Chin resistance groups in Myanmar could soon by used against the Meitei in Manipur. But to assume that a terror plot is being orchestrated against India by foreign nationals from Ukraine and the U.S. working through Myanmar resistance groups would be to stretch the imagination too far without any solid proof.  

The foreign nationals, based on previous known cases, were probably looking to reap profits from the sale of drones to the resistance groups. They might have been willing to lend their expertise on drones to the groups, as it could only enhance sales of such equipment in the future – and hence enhance the payday. The possibility of the group venturing on a mission to gather information and establish a network among resistance groups in Myanmar on a mandate prescribed by some foreign governments cannot be ruled out.  

Some groups in Myanmar’s Chin State and Sagaing Region had apparently explored the possibility of acquiring drones from Thailand and China, without much success. Eventually, if some resistance functionaries are to believed, the rebel groups began to explore options for drones in other countries with the assistance of expatriates.  

Why Is the Indian Government Upset? 

The Indian government had been dismayed with the presence of some foreign nationals in the border states of the Northeast for many years. Sometime in the later part of 2024, an evangelist from the United States, Daniel Stephen Courney, visited Manipur through Myanmar, which prompted the government to fast-track the reimposition of the RAP. In a video posted on social media, Courney was seen distributing drones, socks, and bullet-proof vests to militants in Manipur. In his YouTube Channel “Fool For Christ,” he claimed that he had visited “war zones” in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh, which is afflicted with Maoist insurgency. 

The Indian government’s concerns were magnified when Mizoram Chief Minister Lalduhoma claimed that nearly 2,000 foreigners visited Mizoram between June and December of last year, adding that many of them did not come as tourists and left the state unnoticed. He alleged some foreigners crossed the India-Myanmar border and entered Chin Hills in the neighboring country to give military training there.

These incidents and statements have created the impression that the United States has unveiled a plan to offer assistance to the resistance groups in Myanmar through Mizoram. The U.S. supposed objective is to check China’s growing presence in the country and its plans to expand into the Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean through the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor which is already in progress. But the United States would not have slashed humanitarian aid to Myanmar if it was really serious about attempting to gain a foothold in the country.

A section of Indian government officials believes that the foreign nationals who had crossed over to Myanmar included some intelligence operatives and members of special forces from specific countries. Any government anywhere in the world would be upset if such functionaries were to sneak into prohibited zones without permission. The Indian government is also apprehensive about the radicalization of the resistance groups from the Kuki-Chin communities and the spillover effect on Mizoram.  

The civil war in Myanmar has certainly strengthened the bonds between Mizoram and Myanmar’s Chin State, thereby giving a boost to Greater Mizoram and the common Zo identity. Some observers and government officials are of the opinion that India could face a challenge in the future in striking a balance between regional aspirations and national interests. 

The Indian government is over cautious when it comes to the Northeast, given the sensitivities and the strategic importance of the region. The region has a history of foreign interventions that goes back to the late 1950s when Pakistan offered assistance to the Naga National Council in its quest for a sovereign Nagaland. China intervened from the late 1960s by training batches of rebels from different outfits and equipping them with weapons. In the subsequent decades came the involvement of Bangladesh and Bhutan in sustaining militancy in the region. Currently, the separatist outfits have camps and training facilities in Myanmar and a presence in China and Bangladesh. 

The current episode of the seven foreign nationals is being played up by the Indian government to ensure maximum media publicity so that it serves as a deterrence against similar endeavors in the future. The incident, however, is also a damning indictment of the security lapse by the government and its inability to curb the loopholes in the system despite ample indications in the previous years.