The Arakan Army (AA) on Tuesday claimed to have taken complete control of the junta’s 9th Central Military Training School based in Minbya Township, Rakhine State after 10 days of intense fighting.
Located in the foothills of the Arakan (Yoma) mountains, the training school was the last major junta stronghold in Minbya Township. It was surrounded and protected by over a dozen junta bases and outposts.
The AA began attacking junta defenses around the school on Feb. 17, before seizing the entire complex on Monday despite relentless artillery and air strikes.
The ethnic army said it retrieved a large haul of junta weapons and ammunition along with numerous bodies of regime troops. Several of its own soldiers also lost their lives in the 10-day battle, according to an AA statement.
The AA has also taken control of Minbya town after seizing three junta bases of Light Infantry Battalions 380, 379 and 541 located just outside the town.
After losing its last stronghold in Minbya, the regime used fighter jets to bomb a public hospital in the township’s Min Phoo village at 1.45 am on Tuesday. The attack on the civilian target injured patients and hospital staff and destroyed buildings.
The AA said the hospital had been treating patients, including captured junta soldiers and their family members, at the time of the airstrike.
A junta fighter jet also attacked Minbya’s Thay Kan village and a nearby school sheltering displaced people, injuring 25 civilians, at around 1 am the same day, according to AA and local media reports.
The attack also destroyed school buildings, houses and vehicles.
The AA accused the junta of retaliating to disastrous losses of military headquarters, battalions and towns in Rakhine by committing war crimes against civilian targets including villages, towns, schools and hospitals.
The ethnic army is also attacking Rakhine State’s remaining junta bases in Rathedaung, Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships as well as the last battalion in Ponnagyun town, close to the state capital of Sittwe.
Most residents and junta administrators have reportedly fled Sittwe as AA forces advance on the capital.
The AA has seized over 170 junta bases and nine towns since launching its offensive in Rakhine and Paletwa Township in neighboring southern Chin State on Nov. 13 last year.
