At least 50 junta troops and regime-allied Pyu Saw Htee militia members were killed and 15 captured when resistance forces ambushed a 100-member military column near the border of Kantbalu and Khin-U townships in Sagaing Region on Wednesday, according to local resistance sources. Among the dead was the column commander.
The attack lasted nearly three hours, according to a member of the Ye-U People’s Defense Force (PDF), one of the participating resistance groups. “We struck them at close range. We seized weapons and ammunition. The column commander was killed, and the troops scattered in disarray. Some fled back to the Pyu Saw Htee base in Wettoe Village,” he said.
The attack took place as junta forces advanced from the Pyu Saw Htee stronghold at Wettoe in Kantbalu to Khin-U. Resistance groups said the column consisted mostly of Pyu Saw Htee fighters led by U Wasawa, a nationalist Buddhist monk who serves as the chief of the Kantbalu Township Pyu Saw Htee.
The captured personnel comprised both militia members and junta troops, including conscripts. Resistance forces seized a haul of weapons and hardware including 27 assault rifles (MA-1, MA-3, MA-4, MA-6), ammunition, drones, jammers, power stations and laptops. The attack was jointly carried out by resistance groups from Kantbalu, Ye-U, Shwebo and Taze townships.
Following the ambush, three gyrocopters from the regime’s Northwestern Command in Monywa conducted two bombing raids over the Kantbalu-Khin-U border area on Wednesday night, but no casualties were reported.
Reconnaissance aircraft flew over the area that night, and two jet fighters launched further airstrikes Thursday morning. Pro-junta Telegram channels admitted that the military column had been attacked in Kantbalu and stressed that the army needed to “clear” areas in southern Kantbalu, western Khin-U, and parts of Shwebo, Depayin and Taze townships, which are now dominated by PDF groups.
The junta has been attempting to retake control of strategic roads and resistance strongholds across Sagaing. In August, it gained control over part of the Shwebo-Myitkyina Road—a highway linking Sagaing and Kachin—in Kantbalu Township.
Since then, it has tried to push deeper into Khin-U, but resistance forces say the offensives have stalled. According to an information officer from a local anti-regime group documenting the junta’s war crimes and reporting on military activity in the area, junta troops have been pushing into Khin-U in a pincer movement from Kantbalu and Ye-U since Tuesday.
“Two columns moved simultaneously—one with over 100 troops advancing from Kantbalu, and another with about 80 crossing the Mu River from Ye-U. The Kantbalu column was destroyed in the ambush on Wednesday,” he said.
At least 14 villages along the Kantbalu-Khin-U border have been affected, with more than 5,000 residents forced to flee their homes due to the fighting and airstrikes, according to local sources.
