AA-led fighters take junta hill base near Rakhine-Magway border

Clashes are ongoing after resistance fighters led by the Arakan Army (AA) took near-total control of a strategically important junta hilltop base near the border between Magway Region and Rakhine State on Wednesday, according to sources near the battle lines. The capture of the Nat Yay Kan base comes nearly a week after anti-junta forces overran several junta defensive positions in Magway Region’s Ngape Township near the Rakhine State border, resistance-linked sources said. “The main hilltop base is currently under our control, but the fighting has not stopped and the military is sending reinforcements towards Pazi,” said a resistance fighter close to the Arakan Army, referring to a village some nine miles east of the Rakhine-Magway border. “We are also engaged in fighting at a junta-fortified position near Goke Gyi village.” The anti-junta forces previously managed to gain ground in Pazi village, which is around three miles northeast of the Nat Yay Kan hilltop base and was one of a chain of junta positions on a 15-mile road to the military’s No. 905 Artillery Command headquarters. Despite heavy shelling and airstrikes, the AA-led resistance forces overran junta positions in Pazi, Myaw Zin and Goke Gyi villages, allowing them to disrupt the crucial supply line. “We’ve secured at least 90 percent of the key positions inside the hilltop base, but the military is still carrying out airstrikes,” a resistance fighter from Magway Region told Myanmar Now on Wednesday. “The fall of Nat Yay Kan base would give us control over the Ann-Padan road and bring us a step closer to controlling the Pathein-Monywa road linking Sagaing and Ayeyarwady regions,” the fighter added. The Nat Yay Kan hilltop base, located some seven miles east of the Rakhine-Magway border, has been essential to the junta’s ability to repel advances by the AA and allied resistance forces into Magway Region. The region is home to many of the armaments and munitions factories supplying the junta’s war machine. One of the factories—the Myanmar Directorate of Defence Industries (DI) No. 14 armaments factory near Shauk Taung village, Ngape Township—is located around eight miles north of the Nat Yay Kan base. The township is also home to two artillery battalion bases as well as the No. 905 headquarters. Battles have escalated in Ngape Township since early last month, after the military initiated a counteroffensive to recapture ground lost to the AA and its allies, deploying some 1,400 troops to the area. According to the AA, the military incurred heavy losses in September from clashes in the village of Sun Tet, about two miles south of the Nat Yay Kan base. Local resistance forces were able to take dozens of junta soldiers as prisoners, mostly newly trained conscripts who were retreating from the Nat Yay Kan battle lines. The military junta’s previous deployment of thousands of soldiers to the Rakhine-Magway border area in March was unsuccessful, with troops failing to recapture territory from anti-junta forces in the hills.

AA-led fighters take junta hill base near Rakhine-Magway border

Anti-junta fighters on the ground said capturing the Nat Yay Kan base may allow the resistance to disrupt the military’s supply routes and advance into Magway Region, home to numerous junta armaments factories

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