Resistance forces attacked two regime targets in Kachin State’s Hpakant Township on Monday, according to a member of one of the groups involved.
The attacks, which both took place at around 4am, targeted an office of the junta’s military intelligence agency and a police outpost in Hpakant’s Hseng Taung Ward, the source said.
“We surrounded both places and fired heavy weapons at them. The police outpost also used heavy weapons to retaliate. But everyone from the Military Security Affairs [military intelligence] office fled,” said the fighter from the Kachin Region People’s Defence Force (KPDF).
The group, together with troops from the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), engaged in about 30 minutes of fighting before overrunning the military intelligence office and seizing weapons and documents, he added.
The regime forces suffered several casualties, but exact numbers were not available at the time of reporting.
A local man said he heard at least 20 loud shots being fired in the exchange.
“I could hear heavy weaponry. It was just ‘Bang, bang, bang!’ 20 times or so. The gunshots were very loud, too,” said the man, who added that soldiers in three military vehicles arrived at the scene of the attack at around noon.
Last Wednesday, a combined force of KIA and KPDF troops attacked a junta army camp in Sumprabum Township. The camp, on the Daru stream, was located about 75 miles east of the Kachin State capital Myitkyina.
“We had to fight hard to capture the camp, but in the end it was seized and burned,” said KIA information officer Col Naw Bu.
The camp was one of several strategically located to guard a bridge on the road connecting Myitkyina with Putao to the north.
The KIA, which has strongly backed the armed resistance movement against the regime that seized power in February 2021, has also fought alongside PDF groups in upper Sagaing Region.
Since early July, the junta has mounted a major campaign against the group near its stronghold of Laiza, on the Myanmar-Burma border, sending around 1,000 troops to the area.
