Eight resistance fighters die in combat within 50 miles of Myanmar junta capital

Having lost control of dozens of towns in Myanmar since the armed anti-junta resistance emerged in 2021, the military fought with anti-junta forces less than 50 miles from the country’s administrative capital of Naypyitaw in the first week of the new year. Eight members of the People’s Defense Force (PDF), the armed wing of the publicly mandated National Unity Government, were killed in one of the battles that broke out in Bago Region’s Yesagyo Township last Friday, their commanding officer said. “We now have bases in Yedashe Township and Bago Region and are engaged in fighting with junta troops,” said Tin Oo, an officer fighting with PDF units whose primary strategic objective is to capture Naypyidaw. The PDF casualties occurred during battles in the villages of Yae Hlwe and Pein Hne Pin, Yedashe Township on the east bank of the Sittaung River some 40 miles south of Naypyitaw. According to Tin Oo, clashes also took place in the Bago Region townships of Oktwin and Phyu. Both townships are located within 100 miles of Naypyitaw on expressway connecting Yangon with Naypyitaw and Mandalay, one of the country’s most important routes for travel and supply transport. Resistance forces often intercept vehicles on this highway, stopping them for inspection on the chance that they may be transporting high-ranking junta officials. In a statement released on Tuesday, the NUG claimed that the junta now controls only a third of Myanmar’s territory, and that the PDF and its allies among the ethnic armed groups have taken control of 144 towns in the country in the past three years. “Currently, Mandalay has become the most active front,” the statement said, also claiming that the cities of Naypyitaw, Taungoo, Meiktila, and Yangon—all of which host air bases—are points of vulnerability where the junta is likely to concentrate its defences. PDF members' bodies shown in photos posted on pro-junta online propaganda pages (Telegram)

Eight resistance fighters die in combat within 50 miles of Myanmar junta capital

As anti-junta forces pushed towards Naypyitaw, battles took place some fifty miles to the south on the highway connecting the capital with Yangon and Mandalay

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