A junta-appointed administrator armed with an assault rifle was shot dead in Mandalay Region’s Taungtha Township last week by members of an urban guerrilla force, according to representatives of the group.
Thirty-five-year-old Tun Aung Kyaw of Hlegu Ma village—seven miles northeast of Taungtha town—was assassinated on September 21, his M-22 rifle and ammunition seized by the TTA resistance force, which claimed responsibility for the attack in collaboration with four other local guerrilla groups.
An officer from TTA’s Squadron 2 told Myanmar Now that Tun Aung Kyaw, who had been the administrator of Hlegu Ma since soon after the February 2021 coup, opened fire on his attackers at close range when they tried to confirm his identity.
“We asked if he was in fact Tun Aung Kyaw, and he started to shoot at us. He was the one who initiated the attack, not us, as there were children nearby,” the officer said. “We cornered him and managed to successfully eliminate him.”
“The shots he fired flew right over the children’s heads. Our troops only started firing back after all the children had escaped,” he added.
No members of the resistance were injured in the shootout, the TTA officer told Myanmar Now.
He alleged that Tun Aung Kyaw had been threatening to burn civilians’ homes if they offered support to the anti-junta resistance movement and had also extorted money through gambling operations.
“Many people were forced into hiding because of him. Another reason for us to eliminate him was that he had a weapon,” said the officer.
Hours after Tun Aung Kyaw’s death, the military arrested several locals from the neighbouring villages of Ngwe Thaung and Zayat Gyi, accusing them of involvement in the murder.
“They combed through the area to look for suspects and they arrested activists and members of the NLD,” the TTA officer said, referring to the National League for Democracy, the political party whose administration was ousted in last year’s coup. “I have heard that the victims are now at the Taungtha interrogation centre,” he added, emphasising that those taken into junta custody had no affiliation with the guerrilla forces that carried out the attack.
Tun Aung Kyaw was the fourth man to be targeted for assassination in Taungtha over the past week. Another casualty, Htay Hlaing, the administrator for Cho Gyi village in western Taungtha, was shot dead on September 18 by a local guerrilla force. Local administrator Khin Maung Win and an accused military informant, Win Saw, were shot and killed in the village of Kyauk Pone the following morning.
Taungtha Township was previously known to have been a stronghold of the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party.
