Myanmar junta steps up airstrikes even amid fuel shortage

Despite a deepening shortage of fuel from the Iran war’s effects on the global petroleum supply, Myanmar’s military escalated its campaign of aerial warfare throughout the country in March, massacring hundreds. Even with the scarcity of jet fuel forcing domestic airlines to cancel flights, the military regime has continued to send aircraft to bomb areas where Myanmar’s armed resistance remains active, stepping up rather than scaling back its efforts to crush opposition. Following the outbreak of fighting in Iran on February 28, airstrikes have killed more than 300 people in just over three weeks, with the highest death tolls reported from the strongholds of armed anti-junta groups in Sagaing, Bago, and Magway regions; as well as Rakhine and Kachin states. Former soldiers have noted that the military keeps large reserves of fuel and that its airstrikes are unlikely to slow down. “Fuel from the main reserve bases has already been stored in logistics and support battalions within each command area, so local airstrikes are unlikely to decline during this Middle Eastern conflict,” said Captain Zin Yaw, an officer who defected from the army following Myanmar’s 2021 coup and has since joined the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) against military rule. Civilian air travel is likely to face cutbacks first, followed by the use of military aircraft for training purposes, according to Sergeant Zay Ya, another CDM participant who previously served in the air force for eight years. The military will consider reducing the use of fuel for active operations against the resistance and armed groups only after exhausting all other options, Sgt Zay Ya explained. “Military operations will continue and will only be halted as a last resort, with priority given to key missions,” he said. A Su-30 fighter jet belonging to the Indian Air Force performs a bombing exercise in 2024 (Photo: AFP) Jet fuel supplies Measures to cut off the Myanmar military’s jet fuel supplies through sanctions—proposed by human rights advocates and regime opponents and undertaken by some foreign governments—have fallen short of their goal. The junta has reportedly received jet fuel shipments from Iran since December of last year, according to a report released in early March by Nikkei Asia. Based on estimates of the junta’s rate of fuel usage, these imports could support air force operations for between 120 and 150 days, and Iran is not the only source the junta depends on. “The main suppliers of jet fuel to the junta are China, India, Russia, and ASEAN countries,” said a representative of the Blood Money Campaign (BMC), a group that advocates action by the international community to stop the flow of jet fuel to the junta. The restriction of oil shipments from the strait of Hormuz would disrupt Asia’s oil supplies, potentially impacting jet fuel production around the world and creating difficulties for the junta, the BMC representative added. “If access to jet fuel becomes restricted, it would severely limit the junta’s capacity for airstrikes and reduce the associated threat,” he said. However, due to the difficulty in predicting these effects, he stressed that targeting European and British-based maritime insurance services could have a more direct outcome, especially with the knowledge that most of the junta’s fuel imports come in through a single channel: Thilawa port in Yangon. Map showing the locations of airstrikes in March Ongoing airstrikes The airstrikes in the few weeks since the Iranian war began at the end of February have made March an exceptionally bloody month for Myanmar civilians. Eyewitness accounts from local people indicate that the lethality of the strikes has been deliberate, with some relating that more than one aircraft often strikes the same target in succession. Anti-junta armed groups also described how the military bombed a detention camp for prisoners of war in Rakhine State’s Ann Township, a monastery in Sagaing Region’s Katha Township, and gold dredging rafts used by civilian placer miners in Kachin State’s Bhamo Township. “They conducted military operations that were planned ahead of time, deploying planes from different airbases and coordinating their manoeuvres to strike more effectively,” said a member of the Myanmar Defence and Security Institute (MDSI), a military analysis group staffed by military defectors. Military analysts also noted another advantage the junta has over the resistance groups. Amid worsening jet fuel shortages, the junta could continue their aerial warfare campaigns by resorting to paramotors, gyrocopters, and unmanned drones, all of which require less fuel and can run on cheaper octane produced domestically in Magway Region. “Warplanes can be reserved for high-priority strategic targets, with drones, paramotors, and gyrocopters used for routine, lower-level operations,” Sgt Zay Ya said. The junta has been using paramotors—light aircraft that carry two people at a time—since late 2024, first deploying them in Mandalay Region, and has been using gyrocopters since mid-2025. The frequency of airstrikes—and the casualties from them—have not declined since the coup or shown any sign of abating after the junta held elections in December and January, which were widely dismissed as a sham and a ploy for legitimacy by the international community. According to the human rights ministry of the National Unity Government—the anti-junta cabinet formed and endorsed by members of parliament overthrown in the 2021 coup—the military carried out as many as 12 airstrikes a day at least twice in February, and executed a recordbreaking 17 airstrikes in one day on February 8, when fuel prices were under US$ 60. Incidence of airstrikes since the end of 2025, with rise of oil prices shown in the past month (NUG Ministry of Human Rights) The junta conducted 12 airstrikes again on March 11, by which time fuel prices had climbed to US $90, the human rights ministry found. “They may not have fuel for the public, but they have plenty to use for killing,” a public statement from the Ministry of Human Rights said. “These acts are crimes against humanity perpetrated against the people of Myanmar.” The deadliest attacks Children and monks were among the civilians killed by junta airstrikes in March, which occurred across two of Myanmar’s seven states and three of its seven regions. The highest death toll in this time range was recorded after a four-hour bombing raid on a prisoner of war camp run by the anti-junta group Arakan Army (AA) in Ann Township, Rakhine State. A total of 116 prisoners were reportedly killed in the incident, and at least 32 other noncombatants sustained injuries. The air raid, which hit the AA detention camp near Chaungtu village, Kyauktaw Township repeatedly between 11am and 2:30pm, was the deadliest in a series of aerial attacks on AA-controlled areas in the state, which frequently hit civilian targets such as schools, medical facilities, and markets. An officer of the Arakan Army (AA) officer points to the damage from the junta airstrike at Chaungtu detention camp in Ann Township on March 17 (Photo: Phadu Htun Aung/Myanmar Now) Another airstrike killed at least 50 people including children and monks at a large monastery compound sheltering displaced people in Katha Township, Sagaing Region in the third week of March. The attack occurred during a midday meal, killing and wounding monks as they ate and devotees who had come to donate food. Other junta airstrikes on placer mining sites—where people dredge for gold from rafts floating on rivers and dam reservoirs—are part of the junta’s longstanding ‘four cuts’ strategy, which aims at cutting off resistance groups’ supplies, sources of funds, and other means of sustaining themselves, according to Sgt Zay Ya. On the assumption that anti-junta armed groups extract tax revenue from the gold-mining raft sites, the junta killed more civilians when they bombed rafts near the Thaphanseik Dam in Kyunhla Township, Sagaing Region and near Hsin Hkan village in Kachin State’s Bhamo Township, both in March. “This is deliberately intended to cut off their sources of revenue,” Sgt Zay Ya remarked, referring to the gold mine attacks. Another aerial assault targeting a bus station near Pyaung village in Magway Region’s Mindon Township—apparently aimed at cutting off a resistance supply route—killed at least two dozen people. Ahead of the military’s instalment of the incumbent ‘puppet’ government it plans to use as a facade of civilian legitimacy, the regime was already escalating airstrikes to ramp up pressure on its opponents, Capt Zin Yaw argued. He predicted that the junta would seek ceasefire agreements with ethnic armed groups in its borderlands while deploying more ground troops to secure control of areas currently under resistance control in the country’s heartland. “They aim to win victories under the new government, which is why they are conducting these preemptive attacks despite the jet fuel shortages,” he said. “We can refer to this as striking in advance.” Resistance fighters and military analysts agree that the junta’s strikes on civilian targets are part of a strategy to instil fear and undermine public support for the armed resistance, which they know is vital for it to endure. The military regime wants to “send a repeated message: there’s nothing they won’t dare do,” said Ko Kaung, a spokesperson for the Yaw Revolution Army resistance force in Magway Region. “They are demonstrating then reinforcing the consequences of opposing them. Showing the people again and again how cruel they are willing to be.”

Myanmar junta steps up airstrikes even amid fuel shortage

The regime’s intensified aerial warfare in resistance strongholds, even as resources grow scarce and after a new parliament has convened under the military authorities’ direction, reflects its true priority of crushing opposition in the country

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