Guerrillas claim to raze Burma outpost

BANGKOK — Guerrilla soldiers from Burma’s Karen ethnic minority burned down a government military outpost Friday after capturing it without a fight when its garrison fled, a senior Karen officer said.

The position is about 9 miles from a larger camp that the Karen National Liberation Army stormed and burned 10 days earlier. The group is the armed wing of the Karen National Union, the main political organization representing the Karen minority, whose homeland is in eastern Burma.

The Karen and the Kachin in northern Burma are the two major ethnic armed organizations that have allied themselves with the movement against the junta that took power after the army ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February.

The role of the ethnic militant groups has become more important as the number of people joining street protests in Burma’s cities and towns has declined, in large part because of deadly violence increasingly used by security forces to suppress them. Hundreds of demonstrators and bystanders have died.

There is now daily fighting between the government and the military forces of the Karen and the Kachin.