An anti-junta guerrilla group on Monday threw a homemade bomb at soldiers who were guarding an office in Mandalay belonging to the military-controlled telecoms company MPT.
Around 20 soldiers were at the office near the Inkhayu pagoda in Pyigyidagun Township when members of Generation Z Power (GZP) threw the bomb inside the building at around 8am.
“We have been attacking any place where there are soldiers,” a GZP member told Myanmar Now. “There are usually only four or five soldiers present in that office but there were around 20 present this morning,” said a GZP member to Myanmar Now.
“A group of us threw the grenade into the office while our other team armed with guns stood guard so that the soldiers couldn’t follow us,” he added. “They fired some shots at us from the inside but they were merely shots in the dark as they couldn’t see us.”
In a statement on Monday, GZP said its members saw four soldiers lying on the ground after the attack.
A woman who lives near the Inkhayu pagoda said she heard the attack. “I could hear gunshots coming from all over the place. It was a single explosion. I couldn’t see if any soldiers were injured… I didn’t dare go to check,” she told Myanmar Now.
The People’s Defence Force in Mandalay has launched multiple attacks on junta targets, often using handmade explosives against soldiers on patrol or standing guard.
On Friday a resistance group bombed a military vehicle on Mandalay’s Kanna road, along the bank of the Ayeyarwady river. Similar attacks have taken place across Yangon as part of efforts to take the fight to the junta in Myanmar’s urban hubs.
Meanwhile fierce clashes have continued in the more rural areas of Sagaing and Magway regions and in Chin State. Thousands were forced from their homes in Sagaing’s Depayin Township over the weekend amid air raids and shelling by the military.
