Anti-junta fighters assault regime forces’ outposts in Bago Region

Junta forces called in a series of airstrikes in Htantabin Township, Bago Region on Wednesday after resistance forces and their allies attacked their bases in the early morning. The attacks on the outposts—including a base belonging to Infantry Battalion (IB) 73, the Za Yat Gyi police station, and the Chaung Char police station—began before dawn. All three targets were located within five miles of Bago Region’s border with Karen State’s Thandaunggyi Township. Spokespersons for the Bamar People’s Liberation Army (BPLA), which took part in the assaults, confirmed the military conducted a series of consecutive airstrikes after the fighting began. According to Comrade Lin Lin, a BPLA spokesperson, the allied anti-junta forces managed to take “80 percent” control of the IB 73 base despite the airstrikes and heavy artillery deployed by the military. “We are concentrating our attacks on IB 73, along with our allies, but we still haven’t seized full control. We have already taken 80 percent though,” he said. Members of the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), People’s Defence Forces (PDF) commanded by the publicly mandated National Unity Government’s ministry of defence, and BPLA all took part in the assaults on the IB 73 base. The Spring Warriors Column, a PDF column based in eastern Bago Region, also issued a statement saying they had seized junta bases in the area. The anti-junta forces reported that two BPLA members and five PDF members had been injured in the fighting, with one in critical condition. More detailed information on casualties from the battles is not yet available. Rumours that junta shells and bombs had harmed civilians and damaged buildings in the area also had yet to be confirmed, the BPLA’s Comrade Lin Lin said. The village of Za Yat Gyi—the location of one of the police stations attacked by the anti-junta fighters—is 10 miles south of Htantabin and east of Route 1, a section of the Asia Highway connecting Yangon with Mandalay.The southern regional command of the PDF—which operates as the armed wing of the NUG—has been cooperating extensively with the KNLA in Bago Region since battles spread throughout the region in late 2022.

Anti-junta fighters assault regime forces’ outposts in Bago Region

As police stations and army bases came under attack by the KNLA, PDF, and BPLA on Wednesday, junta forces responded with air and heavy artillery strikes

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