Around three dozen Myanmar junta soldiers were reportedly killed during intense clashes with People’s Defense Forces (PDFs), including ambushes by the latter, in three days in Magwe, Sagaing and Tanintharyi regions and Chin, Shan and Kayah states.
The Chin Defense Force-Kanpetlet said it attacked regime forces deployed at the township’s General Administration Office and Education Office in Kanpetlet, Chin State on Monday morning.
During hour-long fighting, three junta soldiers were killed and Chin resistance fighters escaped from the area, the resistance group said.
Attacks and ambushes by PDFs were also reported in Sagaing Region’s Tamu, Pale, Homalin, Tabayin and Mingin townships over the past three days.
On Sunday morning, three junta troops including an army captain were killed when the PDF-Tamu used mines to attack three military trucks traveling from Tamu to Kale in Sagaing Region, according to media reports.
That evening, a resistance fighter was injured in an ongoing clash between regime troops and the PDF-Tamu in Tamu Township.
The resistance group has urged civilians to avoid the Tamu-Kale highway for several days due to potential clashes.
On Sunday, a combined force of four resistance groups attacked Pyu-Saw-Htee militias, which are trained and armed by the military, in Inmahtee Village in Pale Township.
The resistance groups claimed the junta used two helicopter gunships to help its militia after it had been defeated by the resistance forces.
The Aung San Force, a civilian resistance group based in Pale Township, claimed to have killed five more regime personnel when its remote-controlled drones dropped bombs on junta troops and Pyu-Saw-Htee militias deployed in Zeephyukone Village in Pale, Sagaing Region on Saturday evening.
Last Friday, regime forces in the village were also attacked by a combined force of several local resistance groups. During the attacks the Aung San Force used drones to conduct air raids. However, military casualties are unknown, according to the resistance groups.
The Homalin-PDF also claimed to have killed two junta soldiers and damaged a military truck when it used mines to conduct an ambush in Homalin Township, Sagaing Region on Sunday.
A video showed a military truck being ambushed with mines along with a motorbike.
On Monday morning, two military helicopter gunships reportedly dropped three bombs near a village in Ayadaw Township, Sagaing Region while regime forces were being airlifted by another chopper, according to Ayadaw True Information, a page sharing the township’s news.
The Bo Zaya Squad, a PDF group, said regime soldiers torched houses in two villages during their raids on a series of villages in the west of Tabayin Township, Sagaing Region on Monday morning.
Sharing information on the movements of regime forces, the resistance group urged fleeing villagers not to return to their homes for a while.
Thousands of residents of over five villages near the border of Sagaing’s Mingin and Kani townships have recently fled their homes due to the recent clashes between resistance forces and the regime troops helped by Pyu-Saw-Htee militias.
Two junta soldiers were killed and three injured when PDFs used mines to attack a military detachment that had been raiding and burning hand-dug oil wells in Myaing Township, Magwe Region on Sunday.
“Regime forces are burning the crude-oil tanks while another military group was asking for payments from the hand-dug well operators,” a resistance fighter from Myaing-PDF told The Irrawaddy.
He added, “The military regime thinks PDFs are funded by the hand-dug well operators. So, they are destroying the oil production businesses here to cut funding to PDFs.”
On Saturday, PDFs from Magwe’s Myaing and Yesagayo townships and neighboring Salingyi Township in Sagaing Region occupied and burned down the police station in Myaing after a fierce hour-long clash.
In the clash, all junta police abandoned the police station along with their families after being defeated by the resistance groups.
The Myaing-People’s Defense Team, which took part in the raid, said it seized many firearms and a lot of ammunition.
All family members of junta police including children and women were released by the resistance groups, who urged them to stand on the side of the Myanmar people.
On Sunday, the Myaing People’s Administration Group also urged all government staff working for the military regime in the township to quit by Feb. 10.
Magwe Region’s junta-appointed cabinet recently admitted it has almost lost control of two Magwe districts, Gangaw and Pakokku, including Myaing and Yesagyo townships
On Sunday, a fierce clash broke out near a village in Loikaw Township, Kayah State when the Karenni Nationalities Defense Force (KNDF) and the Karenni Army (KA), the armed wing of the Karenni National Progressive Party, attacked a military detachment. In the firefight, six junta troops and a resistance fighter were killed, said the KNDF.
Another intense clash between the combined resistance forces and junta forces broke out near a military battalion in the township. The KNDF claimed there were many military casualties.
Early on Saturday morning, the KA and KNDF ambushed a military convoy including armored vehicles and tanks sent to Loikaw from neighboring Shan State.
In the ambush, two soldiers were killed while three military vehicles were damaged.
After sustaining heavy losses in a clash in Loikaw on Friday, the regime forces also called in airstrikes against the KNDF and Loikaw-PDF.
Ten junta soldiers were also killed during fighting between a joint force of the Pekon-PDF and KNDF, and a military detachment in Pekon Township, Shan State on Saturday.
The junta used two jet fighters to bomb resistance forces in the clash. The KNDF said many houses were destroyed by 120-mm shells when regime forces randomly fired artillery into residential areas.
A junta soldier was killed and another injured when a combined force of three PDFs attacked regime forces deployed at a village school in Yephyu Township in Tanintharyi Region on Saturday, said the Dawei Guerrilla Revolutionary Force, which joined the attack.
Myanmar’s junta is facing intense daily attacks from PDFs and many ethnic armed groups across the country, except in Rakhine State, which is largely under the control of the Arakan Army.
You may also like these stories:
Police Officer in Charge for NLD Lawyer’s Killing Left Unpunished and Promoted
Myanmar People’s Assembly Pledges to Try Junta at ICC
Villagers Found Slain After Myanmar Junta Raids
