Battles with Arakan Army escalate near junta’s Western command headquarters

Clashes between the military and the Arakan Army (AA) have been breaking out in southern Rakhine State’s Ann Township and across the regional border in Magway’s Ngape Township for more than a week, according to local sources. Fighting in Ann—where the military’s Western Regional Military Command headquarters are located—started on March 24 with a junta attack on an AA base. It was followed by a second 30-minute battle two days later between the Rakhine ethnic armed organisation and Light Infantry Battalion 346 west of the village of Lone. Residents of Lone, as well as 10 other communities in the vicinity, have reportedly fled their homes due to the fighting. On Tuesday, the AA issued a statement announcing that its forces had “indefinitely” blocked access to the nearly 70-mile stretch of road connecting Ann with the town of Padein in Magway Region’s Ngape Township, due to both the fighting along the route and the junta’s reliance on it for logistical support. “The Myanmar military has deployed more troops, transported rations and weapons in civilian cars, as well as planted landmines,” the statement said of the regime’s use of the road. An AA statement on the evening of March 28 claimed that the Myanmar army had suffered around 15 casualties and saw another 15 soldiers injured in recent clashes between Ann and neighbouring Ngape, and that the AA, which had two members wounded, had seized weapons and ammunition from the junta. Myanmar Now is unable to independently verify the figures. The military council has not released any information on the fighting. The AA has seized control of eight of Rakhine State’s 17 townships: Kyauktaw, Minbya, Mrauk-U, Myebon, Pauktaw, Ponnagyun, Ramree and Rathedaung, as well as Paletwa in southern Chin State. An Ann local who spoke to Myanmar Now on the condition of anonymity said that it was likely that the AA might soon add the township to this list. “I don’t think it would be very difficult for [the AA] to seize Ann,” he said, noting that junta soldiers from a logistical base and the base of a Light Infantry Battalion had withdrawn to the Western Regional Command headquarters on March 26. “A large number of military personnel from the bases in Ann were injured, killed, and arrested while travelling to Ramree as reinforcements, as well as travelling north. We can say that they are running out of soldiers.” The junta also abandoned its bases in Tat Taung town in Ann Township in late February; the air force bombed the area on March 2. Fighting between the AA and the Myanmar army in neighbouring Ngape Township occurred on March 26 and 28, first in a clash with 40 regime soldiers northeast of the village of Tone Gyi, reportedly causing four junta casualties, and later with 50 more troops south of Chaung Phyar, killing six military personnel, according to the AA. The junta has been collecting the names of young men in Ngape for military conscription, according to another local resistance group, the Asho Chin Defence Force. “On March 14, they started collecting name lists of eligible recruits for mandatory conscription in 10 villages on a hill where the majority of the population are Asho Chin people,” an information officer in the group said. Since February, the junta has restricted supplies like petrol from being brought into Ngape, he added. The People’s Revolution Alliance (Magway) issued a statement on March 24 describing a roadside guerrilla attack they carried out against regime forces that had been terrorising local villages.

Battles with Arakan Army escalate near junta’s Western command headquarters

In Rakhine State’s Ann Township, the Arakan Army announces it has blocked a strategic road to Magway Region, while the military is reportedly abandoning bases and ‘running out of soldiers’

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