Clashes between People’s Defence Forces (PDFs) under the control of the National Unity Government (NUG) and other resistance forces escalated in Myingyan, a southern district of Mandalay Region, on Monday, resistance groups said.
The clashes occurred in the district’s Ngazun Township.
On Monday morning, PDFs in Myingyan District seized a police outpost where junta troops were stationed in the township’s Nga Myar village tract.
Allied resistance groups also captured junta troops at an outpost in the village tract on the banks of the Irrawaddy River, about five miles from Si Mee Kho port of Myingyan town, a spokesperson for Ngazun PDF said.
“We are still taking control of Nga Myar village tract and the fighting keeps escalating. We are trying to seize it completely,” he said.
Nga Myar is the biggest village tract in Ngazun Township, with a population of about 7,000 people. It is also home to pro-military Pyu Saw Htee militia groups, an official from the NUG’s Ministry of Defense said.
He said that the PDFs are attacking Pyu Saw Htee militia bases in Ngazun Township and that these attacks are part of the ministry’s Myingyan District Special Operation.
The operation is the first of its kind. Its goal is to liberate all four townships of Myingyan District – Myingyan, Taung Tha, Natogyi and Nganzun – from junta troops and their allied militias.
Many rural areas of the district have been under resistance control for years with the junta’s administration restricted to towns, residents say.
Resistance forces joining the operation include Monywa District PDF Battalion 14, TGYR-Youth Guerrilla Counter Revolution – NZ, Ngazun Townships PDF 925 – Guerrilla Force, Wings of KSU, and Mandalay District PDF Battalion 5.
They launched coordinated attacks on junta forces in Ngazun Township on August 10 by bombing junta reinforcements heading to the police outpost in Nga Myar Village Tract.
At about 3 pm on August 16, the allied resistance forces attacked a junta column stationed inside a monastery in the township’s Taung Ywar Bo village.
Monywa District PDF Battalion 14 said that at least 30 junta troops were killed in the attack.
Myingyan District Special Operation was launched on August 10 by resistance groups from Mandalay and Sagaing regions. They have urged civilians to avoid using the Myingyan-Natogyi and Myingyan-Taungtha roads until the district is liberated.
