Resistance groups in Mon State claim to have killed a dozen regime troops during repeated attacks in Belin Township on Tuesday where they have taken control of major highways and roads.
Raven Column said it and other resistance groups, including the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), first used land mines to ambush 20 regime forces advancing toward Dauk Yat Village on the Yangon-Mawlamyine Highway in Belin Township on Tuesday morning.
The KNLA is the armed wing of the country’s oldest ethnic revolutionary group, the Karen National Union (KNU).
The regime unit was performing security checks for a military convoy that was due to use the highway.
It retreated after five of its troops were killed and three others were injured in the land-mine ambush, resistance group Raven Column said.
Later that day, combined resistance groups ambushed 30 more regime forces arriving in the area. Ten land mines were used in the ambush that killed seven junta troops and injured 10 more, according to resistance group Tabin Shwe Htee Column, which took part in the ambush.
Joint attacks by resistance groups continued that morning with drones dropping bombs on regime forces in the area. The bombs injured five more regime forces, including police and former soldiers, the resistance groups said.
The Irrawaddy could not independently verify the reports.
After the resistance attacks, regime forces shelled areas near Douk Yat and adjacent Khae Mauk Village until the afternoon using heavy artillery, local media quoted residents as saying.
The resistance groups said that due to the series of attacks, the military convoy that had arrived in Belin Township turned back before reaching its destination.
Several People’s Defense Force groups (PDFs) under the command of the civilian National Unity Government (NUG) and allied KNLA forces have taken control of many sections of the Yangon-Mawlamyine Highway as well as Mawlamyine-Tanintharyi Highway, which links Bago Region, Mon State and Tanintharyi Region.
Resistance groups in Mon State are jointly conducting security checks on civilian vehicles using both highways—which connect in the state’s capital Mawlamyine—in order to prevent regime forces from entering the area as well as the flow of military ammunitions and military products, including several liquor brands.
The joint office of the southern military region of the KNU and the National Unity Government (NUG) is prohibiting civilians from using the highways between 6pm and 6am.
The joint armed groups of the KNU and NUG have also been increasing attacks on regime targets in Bago Region, threating both the new Yangon-Mandalay Expressway and the old highway connecting the two cities, as well as the Yangon-Mandalay railway. Both highways and the railway are strategic links between the country’s commercial hub Yangon to the regime’s administrative capital Naypyitaw.
Resistance attacks have been reported along both Yangon-Mandalay road routes. Civilians are being urged not to use either the old highway or the new expressway between 6pm and 6am.
