Myanmar resistance groups reportedly occupied a Military Security Affairs office during a dawn raid on regime bases in Myanmar’s jade town of Hpakant in Kachin State on Monday, according to locals and Kachin media.
At 4 a.m. on Monday, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), one of the country’s most powerful ethnic armed groups, and the Hpakant People’s Defense Force (PDF) jointly raided the military intelligence office in a residential ward of Hpakant town, a resident told The Irrawaddy.
At the same time, other members of the joint resistance group attacked regime forces at a police station in the town to prevent them from reinforcing the military office, the media reported, citing residents.
The military office was occupied, and some regime forces were killed and injured in the resistance raids, locals told the media.
A resistance official confirmed the raids to the Kachin News Group.
However, KIA spokesperson Colonel Naw Bu said he had not received reports of the raids from forces on the ground when The Irrawaddy contacted him.
Last Thursday, two junta policemen were killed and three injured in the jade town when KIA and PDF forces attacked police officers in a vehicle as they were arriving at a clinic in Seik Mu Village.
A day earlier, joint resistance forces attacked a military outpost at a bridge between two villages in the jade-mining hub, killing two soldiers. On the same day, the KIA and another PDF group attacked and seized a strategic junta base at a bridge on the Myitkyina-Sumprabum highway in Sumprabum Township, killing 11 junta soldiers and arresting two.
Two resistance fighters were also killed and others were injured.
Since early July, clashes have been reported along the Myitkyina-Bhamo highway in Kachin Sate following the junta’s deployment of several hundred troops to attack the KIA’s headquarters in Laiza on the Chinese border.
The KIA has clashed with junta forces in Muse and Kutkai townships in neighboring northern Shan State. It is also fighting junta troops alongside PDF groups in upper Sagaing Region.
