AA takes base in Bago Region, battles junta forces near Rakhine-Magway border

The powerful Rakhine State-based armed group Arakan Army (AA) says forces under its command captured a junta base camp in Bago Region on Tuesday and continue to battle the military in several regions of the country. The AA-led led forces took over the Point Hill 666 base in Padaung Township, Bago Region around noon after three hours of fighting, the AA said in a statement on Wednesday, seizing weapons, ammunition and equipment. After taking over the Myanmar military’s Western Regional Military Command (RMC) headquarters in Ann Township, Rakhine State late last year, the AA began targeting the military’s bases outside of Rakhine State in the neighbouring Ayeyarwady, Bago, and Magway regions. The Rakhine armed group has been assaulting the military’s bases along the Taungup-Padaung road—north of the hill base—since earlier this year, after capturing the Moe Hti Taung base on the Bago-Rakhine border. The road leads to the junta’s Directorate of Defence Industries (DI) No. 6 factory—one of seven armaments factories in Bago Region—near the village of Nyaung Chay Htauk and some three miles west of the town of Oke Shit Pin in Padaung Township. The military operates 25 arms factories in Myanmar, 15 of which are in Magway Region and seven of which are in Bago Region, with two in Naypyitaw and one in Yangon. The junta, aware of the threat to its armaments factories, has been fighting fiercely to repel advances by the AA and its allies beyond the borders of Rakhine State. Satellite image of Nat Yay Kan base in Ngape Township The gateway to Magway Region The AA and allied fighters also continued their assaults on the junta’s Nat Yay Kan hill base in Ngape Township, Magway Region, the group’s spokespersons said. AA forces have been targeting the base camp, which is located on the Ann-Padan road linking Rakhine State and Magway Region, since mid-February. They managed to capture and hold it for less than two days before the junta, strengthened by fresh reinforcements, retook it in a counterattack on Tuesday morning. “The enemy’s strategy was a success. They withdrew, then launched a counterattack. Now it's back to the previous situation,” an AA-connected source said. “The fighting is still not over. They are counterattacking us now in Pazi with a force of two battalions or so. There’s also fighting in Kha Mauk Taung tactical camp,” he added. The junta deployed large numbers of soldiers to retake and defend the Nat Yay Kan camp due to its strategically important location some 10 miles from the Rakhine-Magway border. The recapture of Nat Yay Kan camp by anti-junta fighters would expose the junta’s DI No. 14 armaments factory, located some eight miles north of the base camp in the village of Shauk Taung, and open the Ann-Padan road for the AA to advance deeper into the region. Aware of this threat, the junta has successfully held the hill camp through months of attacks and recent encirclement by the AA, apart from the brief takeover by AA-commanded fighters earlier this week. The AA and its allies have also captured army bases just over 10 miles from the Nat Yay Kan camp outside the village of Pazi; in the nearby Myawzin and Gokegyi villages, in the past week. Pazi village, located northeast of the Nat Yay Kan hill base, was captured by resistance forces on October 9. “The junta’s air superiority is their main advantage at Nat Yay Kan,” a local resistance source said. “Nearly every day there are aerial bombing runs. This morning two Y-12 aircraft came and were dropping bombs. One was targeting near the old road and the other was dropping them near Kha Mauk Taung,” he added, referring to the other nearby tactical camp targeted by the resistance and AA. The AA also engaged junta troops in a brief battle near Set Set Yo village in Ayeyarwady Region’s Yegyi Township on Wednesday around 4pm. Fighting between the military and AA has also reportedly intensified around Sittwe, the Rakhine State capital, after the military shelled and launched drone strikes targeting AA positions in the area. Arakan Army fighters in Maungdaw Township, Rakhine State in September. (Photo: One Nation News)

AA takes base in Bago Region, battles junta forces near Rakhine-Magway border

Forces led by the Arakan Army (AA) captured a junta outpost south of the Taungup-Padaung road in Padaung Township, Bago Region and continued to assault the Nat Yay Kan base in Magway Region’s Ngape Township

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