Myanmar junta carries out eight airstrikes in Kachin State after attack on Myitkyina Airport

Within three days of a nighttime drone strike at the airport in Myitkyina, Kachin State last Friday, Myanmar’s air force conducted eight bombing raids in areas controlled by the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), according to locals and KIA-connected sources. Following the drone attack, which reportedly caused damage to a Myanmar National Airlines plane, military junta officials released a public statement attributing responsibility to the KIA and its allies and claiming the military would respond with force. On the same night as the drone strike, the military shelled parts of Myitkyina Township where they believed KIA members were present, resulting in injuries to three civilians in Si Tar Pu Ward, according to a local woman. The military also deployed unmanned kamikaze drones to a KIA hilltop base a few miles north of the group’s headquarters in Laiza, Waingmaw Township, striking at around 10:30pm that night. The military has also conducted a series of airstrikes since Saturday targeting territory under the control of five KIA brigades in Mohnyin, Waingmaw, Sadung, Momauk, Mansi, Hpakant, and Tanai townships, according to a Kachin fighter at the front. It remains unclear what casualties or damage may have resulted from the strikes on Laiza or the KIA’s brigade-level headquarters. However, the reports have begun to emerge about deaths, injuries, and property damage from the airstrikes and other junta actions in civilian areas. A junta helicopter attacked the village of Bum Ka Htaung—in a KIA-controlled area of Momauk Township a few miles west of the Chinese border—around 11:30pm on Sunday, killing a 79-year-old and damaging several civilian homes, according to the Kachin fighter. “The helicopter fired off two bombs, each around 300 pounds,” he said. “They struck directly inside the village.” A local villager said the military also dropped three bombs later that night, around 2am, in the village of War Shawng, Waingmaw Township, some ten miles east of the Ayeyarwady River opposite Myitkyina. “They landed on the village’s outskirts, with the shrapnel causing only minor damage to the church and kindergarten,” the villager said. Clashes have escalated between the military and KIA-led forces in Waingmaw Township since earlier this month, with KIA fighters and their allies reportedly capturing several junta checkpoints near the military’s Infantry Battalion 587 base. Around 80 miles to the south, fighting in Bhamo has also remained intense, with resistance forces reportedly taking over a junta camp near the IB 236 base and seizing junta weapons, according to the Kachin fighter who spoke to Myanmar Now. The KIA’s spokesperson, Colonel Naw Bu, has yet to respond to Myanmar Now’s queries about the recent aerial bombing and ongoing clashes in Kachin State. Despite a recent lull in clashes near the jade-mining township Hpakant in the north of the state, junta troops reportedly shot and killed two civilians on a road near Yu Mar village around 4pm on Sunday, according to a local man. A local social aid organisation reportedly collected their remains the next morning, but further details about the civilians’ identities remain unconfirmed. The junta has intensified airstrikes in the state, and even in areas with no active fighting, amid escalating hostilities with the KIA and their allies in Hpakant, Waingmaw, Inn Taw Gyi, and Bhamo townships over the past two months.

Myanmar junta carries out eight airstrikes in Kachin State after attack on Myitkyina Airport

Following a drone strike that reportedly damaged a passenger plane at the airport in Kachin State’s capital, the junta air force has bombed eight places in territory held by the Kachin Independence Army (KIA)

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