Anti-junta groups ambush, attack Myanmar military forces near Rakhine-Magway border

Locals and resistance sources said fierce clashes had continued since the beginning of January on a major route connecting Ann, Rakhine State with towns in Magway Region. Resistance fighters killed at least five junta soldiers when they intercepted a convoy of four vehicles carrying junta reinforcements near Goke Gyi village in Magway Region’s Ngape Township on Sunday, according to members of the People Revolution Army of Magway (PRA-Magway). “We ambushed junta trucks heading from Padan to Ka Myin Kan village,” a PRA-Magway member said, describing a trip originating in a village in Ngape Township and destined for a village in Rakhine State’s Ann Township. “One of them was totally destroyed,” he added. Local sources told Myanmar Now on Friday that earlier in the week a military outpost near Ka Myin Kan, Ann Township had fallen to the Arakan Army (AA), the powerful ethnic armed organisation that has captured most of the state’s territory from junta forces. The PRA-Magway resistance group is a close ally of the AA. Anti-regime forces claimed to have taken a dozen prisoners of war from Light Infantry Division (LID) 99 during a series of clashes that broke out on the same road in Ngape Township. Weapons seized from a junta outpost near the village of Ka Myin Kan in Rakhine State’s Ann Township near the border with Magway Region (Photo: AA Info Desk) A statement released by the AA on Tuesday confirmed that the clashes first broke out near a junta outpost in Ka Myin Kan, located less than a mile from the border with Magway Region. “The situation remains unclear with ongoing clashes along the road,” a source close to the AA said. Myanmar Now is still awaiting comment from AA spokespersons regarding the capture of the junta outpost and subsequent fighting. “We hear daily artillery barrages from a hilltop junta base, but no gunfire or shelling from the junta bases near our village. The battles are taking place up in the hilly area,” a man from Ngape Township said. The military regime has reinforced its defenses in the area to slow or block the AA’s advance into Magway Region, according to anti-regime fighters. “Nearly all the battalions in LID-99 have been deployed to our area, along with reinforcements and supplies of weapons and ammunition,” the PRA-Magway member said. The military maintains several strategically important bases, including two military armaments factories and artillery battalion bases, close to villages and other civilian settlements in Ngape Township. However, the anti-regime forces lack the numbers and firepower to mount coordinated operations against them. “Local resistance groups mainly carry out guerrilla operations to intercept the junta convoys. They don’t have the capacity for a major offensive against the junta bases,” a man from Ngape Township said. Local sources said the inhabitants of at least five villages in Ann and Ngape townships have been displaced since November amid the fighting, but most people remaining the area have few options for where to seek safety. “We have nowhere to go even if fighting spreads to our area,” the Ngape Township resident said. “Many of us living here can’t afford to move anywhere else.”

Anti-junta groups ambush, attack Myanmar military forces near Rakhine-Magway border

According to members of the armed group People Revolution Army of Magway (PRA-Magway), anti-junta fighters in the area lack the capacity for large-scale offensives, instead ambushing convoys carrying reinforcements and supplies

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