Armed resistance
The Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and the People’s Defence Force (PDF) clashed with regime forces in Manton, a town in northern Shan State’s Palaung (Ta’ang) Self-Administered Zone, for several days beginning October 4.
The fighting forced many living in the area to flee to the surrounding countryside or to northern Shan State’s largest town, Lashio. Several houses and monasteries in Manton were reportedly damaged by the military’s heavy artillery fire, and phone signals and the internet were also cut off in the town. Casualty figures were not available.
According to Manton locals, the two sides began fighting in the area last month. On September 29, the anti-regime forces overran and torched a police station in the town. In retaliation, junta troops opened fire on the town with heavy weapons, injuring at least one civilian. Neither the KIA nor the Ta’ang National Liberation Army—another ethnic armed organisation active in the region—were available for comment.
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In a statement released on October 7, the Arakan Army (AA) said that it had killed around 40 junta soldiers and injured at least two dozen more in some 20 clashes in northern Rakhine and southern Chin states since the beginning of the month. The fighting, which took place in four townships, also left several AA troops wounded, the group said.
Major clashes took place near the villages of Hpa Yon Chaung and Myeik Wa in southern Chin State’s Paletwa Township on October 1 and 2 and near the village of Kyauk Sar Taing in northern Rakhine State’s Buthidaung Township on October 3, according to the AA statement. The latter battle lasted five hours and left at least 17 junta troops dead, it claimed. Another clash broke out two days later near the village of Gu Dar Pyin, also in Buthidaung. Fighting resumed the next day and at least 10 regime soldiers were killed, the group said.
On October 7, eight more junta troops died during an assault on a junta outpost near a bridge in Minbya Township, the AA added. After that clash, regime forces shelled several nearby villages, injuring at least six civilians. The junta also fired on the Way Lar mountain range in northern Maungdaw Township at around 1am the same day, according to the AA statement.
Urban violence and assassinations
Resistance forces based in Myitnge Township shot and killed two junta personnel outside the town of Pa Leik on the afternoon of October 3, less than 10 miles from the city of Mandalay.
Guerrilla fighters on three motorbikes chased one of two cars exiting a Pa Leik electricity office that afternoon in which four regime personnel were passengers. They fatally shot police lieutenant Zaw Win, who was sitting in the front seat and was the head of Pa Leik’s police station, and army major Zaw Zaw Naing, who was in the back.
The driver, a policeman, was injured, as was another soldier who was seated next to Zaw Zaw Naing. The passengers reportedly shot back at their attackers for around three minutes.
A spokesperson for the Myitnge PDF said that members of his group, as well as those from two urban guerrilla forces, carried out the assault.
He told Myanmar Now that Zaw Win died at the scene and had been targeted for his alleged participation in the military-sanctioned destruction of civilian homes in Pa Leik. Zaw Zaw Naing, he claimed, had been involved in the torture of detainees in junta interrogation centres in Kyaukse, 17 miles south of Pa Leik. He reportedly died of his injuries on the way to the hospital.
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On October 5, an explosive went off at a ward administration office in Shwepyitha Township, an industrial area of suburban Yangon. A female staff member, 22-year-old Nwe Nwe Hlaing, sustained minor injuries in the attack, according to a police source.
A Yangon-based resistance group called Generation Z Defence Force, which belongs to the Yangon Urban Guerrilla (UG) Association, issued a statement later that day claiming responsibility for the attack. The group apologised for any harm caused to civilians as a result of the explosion.
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The PDF chapter of southern Yangon Region’s Kayan Township fired grenades at four regime targets on October 7, including an administration office and a police station.
A spokesperson from the Kayan PDF said that its members used a 40mm grenade launcher in the attacks, starting with the township administration office at around 10am while junta-appointed ward administrators were holding a meeting onsite. A source in the area said that the building was damaged in the attack, but Myanmar Now was not able to verify the extent of the destruction or whether there were any casualties. Other targets included a nearby security outpost, a police station located on the street next to the administration office, and a checkpoint on the road linking the township to neighbouring Bago Region.
Media attacks
A junta court sentenced detained journalist and columnist Sithu Aung Myint to three years in prison with hard labour on October 7, according to a military announcement. A judge from the Pazundaung Township court handed down the sentence at a tribunal inside Insein Prison, where Sithu Aung Myint is being held, Myanmar Now has learned.
The prominent columnist was arrested in Yangon on August 15 along with another journalist, Htet Htet Khine. She was handed a six-year prison sentence in September for incitement and illegal association with the publicly mandated National Unity Government, which has been labelled a terrorist organisation by the junta.
Sithu Aung Myint’s lawyer said he would appeal the verdict, according to a report by Voice of America’s (VOA) Burmese service. He still faces another incitement case in Yangon’s Bahan Township Court and a sedition charge under Section 124a of the Penal Code, filed in Yangon’s eastern district court. His next hearing is scheduled for October 13.
The veteran journalist has been an outspoken critic of military rule and regularly contributed to media outlets such as Frontier Myanmar and VOA. After his arrest, regime mouthpiece Global New Light of Myanmar said Sithu Aung Myint had supported “terrorist groups,” encouraged people to join the Civil Disobedience Movement, and spread “fake news” about a junta-controlled lottery scheme.
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Protests
Hundreds of Buddhist devotees visited Yangon’s landmark Shwedagon Pagoda on October 9, the full moon of the month of Thadingyut, to mark the end of Buddhist Lent amid ongoing turmoil across the country. The Thadingyut festival, also known as Myanmar’s festival of lights, is an annual three-day celebration on the Burmese calendar to commemorate the Buddha’s descent from heaven. It is typically celebrated through the launching of fireworks, lighting of candles, and placement of decorative lanterns around homes and residential areas.
Regime mouthpieces and pro-military news outlets published photos of crowds visiting pagodas in several cities, including the junta capital of Naypyitaw, to propagate an image of peace and normalcy amid ongoing campaigns of fierce resistance to and rejection of military rule.
Though security was tightened at the entrances to Shwedagon Pagoda, youth from an anti-regime group called the Yangon Revolution Force staged a flash mob-style protest by unfurling a banner that read “The revolution must succeed” in Burmese on the pagoda platform.
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