AA attacks Myanmar army base on Rakhine State’s eastern border as airstrikes continue

Fighting intensified near the border between Rakhine State and Bago Region this week as the Arakan Army (AA) and allied forces assaulted a junta outpost in Taungup Township, Rakhine State just west of the boundary. The army’s “Taung Pone Gyi” outpost has been under attack since early January by anti-regime forces led by the AA, an ethnic armed organisation that has captured most of the Rakhine State’s townships from the Myanmar military, a source connected to the organisation said. “The AA is currently attacking the Taung Pone Gyi outpost, and clashes are also expected to intensify near the Rakhine-Magway and Rakhine-Ayeyarwady borders,” said the source, a member of a fighting force allied with the AA. The AA has not released information regarding the clashes at the time of reporting. A satellite image of the base The junta outpost, currently under the AA-led forces’ attack, is located on the Taungup road around 35 miles west of Oke Shit Pin in Bago Region’s Pandaung (Padaung) Township. It has most likely become a target for the AA-led alliance’s attacks because of its proximity to Pandaung Township, which is of strategic importance for the junta because of the four military armaments factories located there. After capturing 14 of Rakhine State’s 17 township-level administrative centres, the AA issued a statement last week signalling its openness to dialogue with the Myanmar military and seeking a “political resolution” to the ongoing conflict over control of Rakhine State. However, tensions remain high in the capital city of Sittwe, the port town of Kyaukphyu, and the island township of Manaung, the last three townships still under the control of the military regime in Rakhine State. Map showing location of the Taung Pone Gyi outpost on the Rakhine-Bago border (Myanmar Now) The regime has continued to carry out retaliatory airstrikes in the state—especially in the townships of Ponnagyun, Myebon, Gwa, and Thandwe—since AA-led forces captured the Myanmar army’s Western Regional Military Command headquarters in the town of Ann on December 20. The latest aerial assaults hit the town of Kanhtauntkyi, Myebon Township—some 33 miles northeast of Kyaukphyu—on Friday at around 1am, according to local sources. The Arakan Princess, a local media outlet affiliated with the AA, reported that an elderly woman living in the Kanhtauntkyi’s Ywar Thit Ward died from her injuries on Friday after junta warplanes bombed a hospital and a nearby high school, according to Arakan Princess, a local media outlet affiliated with the Arakan Army. Three days earlier on New Year’s Eve, the air force also carried out two rounds of aerial assaults on a village in Ponnagyun Township less than 30 miles north of Sittwe, killing five civilians including displaced people and injuring at least nine including a monk. The week before, junta bombs killed one civilian and injured three in a village and urban area of Rakhine State’s Thandwe Township.

AA attacks Myanmar army base on Rakhine State’s eastern border as airstrikes continue

Anti-regime forces targeted an outpost less than two miles from the state line, menacing several of the military’s armaments factories in Pandaung Township, Bago Region

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