Min Aung Hlaing admitted during a meeting with Yangon Region officials on Monday that his regime was struggling to curb the popular revolt, as an apparent plot to assassinate the junta leader was foiled.
Hostilities were still occurring in certain areas in the country, said Min Aung Hlaing, referring to resistance attacks on junta troops across ethnic areas and central Myanmar.
Asked four months after his 2021 coup whether the situation was under control, Min Aung Hlaing told China’s state-owned Phoenix media: “We can’t say 100 percent. There are still subversive acts in some places.”
Since then, instead of asserting total control over the country, his regime has lost control of dozens of townships, particularly in ethnic areas including northern Shan, Rakhine, Chin, Kachin, and Kayah (Karenni) states.
In many other towns, the junta’s administrative mechanism has ceased functioning as anti-regime forces advance on junta troops there. And martial law is in place in dozens of townships.
Monday’s meeting was joined by the junta State Administration Council’s joint secretary Lieutenant-General Ye Win Oo, defense minister General Tin Aung San, Min Aung Hlaing’s advisor Lt-Gen Nyo Saw, junta ministers, and senior military officers from war office headquarters.
Min Aung Hlaing urged his cabinet members to stay on the alert for terrorist plots in Yangon, referring to ambushes of junta troops by anti-regime forces. He called on junta authorities to eradicate “terrorist dens” in the commercial capital and surrounding region.
An anti-regime unit had reportedly been plotting to attack Min Aung Hlaing as he attended the opening of the third bridge across the Bago River linking Yangon and Thanlyin on Saturday.
Junta media reported that the unit was arrested with homemade rockets on Monday. Though it failed, the plot signals the junta boss is now under threat of attack even in Yangon.
