The ethnic Arakan Army (AA) on Wednesday attacked a junta base on the border of Rakhine State and Bago Region that is crucial for the defense of an arms production hub.
The heavily fortified checkpoint in Taung Pone Gyi village sits in the Arakan Mountains adjacent to Pandaung Township in western Bago.
Junta warplanes strafed Taung Pone Gyi and surrounding villages during the attack, leaving multiple casualties and forcing residents to flee to the nearby town of Okshitpin, according to a local who fled.
“The fighting took place on the Taungup-Pandaung road in the Arakan Mountains. I heard several people were killed and injured,” he told The Irrawaddy.
The Irrawaddy could not contact other locals for details as communications are down in the area.
Taung Pone Gyi checkpoint sits high up in the Arakan Mountains, about halfway on the road weaving from Rakhine State’s Taungup to Bago’s Pandaung, and is key to defending a cluster of arms factories on the other flank.
If it were to fall, the AA would have a clear path to Okshitpin on the junction with the Pathein-Monywa road and Pandaung beyond.
Five of Bago’s seven ordnance factories (known as KaPaSa in Burmese) are spread across Pandaung, which is also home to state-owned heavy industries that date back to the time of the Burma Socialist Programme Party.
The attack on Taung Pone Gyi came after the AA captured Taungup, which housed the 5th Military Operations Command of the Myanmar military.
The AA has now seized 14 of Rakhine’s 17 townships, and the retreating regime has bolstered defenses on the border of Magwe, Bago and Ayeyarwady regions for fear that armed conflict could spill over.
