Myanmar junta forces close in on Tagaung

Junta troops in northern Mandalay Region reportedly advanced to within two miles of the town of Tagaung, Thabeikkyin Township on Monday as part of a major counteroffensive to retake territory from resistance groups, frontline sources said. The military regime began deploying columns of soldiers to the area in early February, mostly from a training base in Twin Nge village some 30 miles south of Tagaung, to recapture the strategically important town. Anti-junta forces have controlled Tagaung, located on the east bank of the Ayeyarwady River near the Mandalay-Bhamo road, since August 2024. By last Friday, the ground troops reached as far as the village of Yae Yin, some six miles south of Tagaung, and reportedly moved about four miles closer to the town by Monday, according to a source close to the fighting. “They are advancing in two separate columns on either side,” the source said. “Having passed Yae Yin Village, they are now two miles from Tagaung. They’ve also been carrying out drone strikes from the west bank of the river.” The military regime has already recaptured most resistance-held territory in the region north of Mandalay—including the towns of Madaya, Singu, and Thabeikkyin—leaving only Tagaung under resistance control. While fighting fiercely to hold back the junta counteroffensive, resistance forces nevertheless lost at least ten villages to the advancing troops in mid-February, including the large, 400-household village of Shar Taw. The columns of junta troops reached the village of Min Kone around 12 miles south of Tagaung on March 3, continuing to push forward at a rate of about a mile a day over the next week. “The situation is dire,” said a resistance fighter based in Mandalay Region. “We’ve had to fall back little by little. If you ask whether we could lose control, the answer is yes.” Ahead of its advancing troops, the military has carried out drone and artillery strikes on villages between Thabeikkyin and Tagaung, killing civilians and forcing thousands to flee their homes. The resistance forces still occupying Tagaung are made up of members of the People’s Defence Forces commanded by the publicly mandated National Unity Government as well as smaller, allied resistance groups and local People’s Defence Teams. “The town remains under our control,” a resistance source in Singu Township told Myanmar Now on Monday. “We have sent reinforcements and will continue the defence.” Located just under 130 miles north of Mandalay, Tagaung is a culturally significant town with a long documented history. It was one of the earliest city-states of the Pyu civilisation that thrived in the Ayeyarwady and Chindwin river valleys during the first millennium CE. Now home to a population made up largely of fishermen and farmers, it serves as a hub connecting Mandalay Region with Sagaing Region and Kachin State by both water and overland routes. Occupying the town has also allowed the resistance forces to control a nearby nickel-mining site.

Myanmar junta forces close in on Tagaung

By Monday, the regime’s ground troops had advanced to within two miles of the town in northern Mandalay Region, which resistance forces have controlled since August 2024

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