Myanmar military arrests 17 locals after Naypyitaw air base attack

Authorities have arrested 17 residents of the Naypyitaw Union Territory in the week since a rocket attack on the Aye Lar air base in Myanmar’s junta-controlled administrative capital. According to regime-controlled newspapers, two young men from Hayman village near the town of Thar Wut Hti, Naypyitaw Union Territory and 15 other people have been detained for questioning as part of the military regime’s investigation. The attack, which occurred on July 16, was the latest targeting the Aye Lar air base inside Naypyitaw’s international airport since a series of drone and rocket assaults in April. The base houses fighter planes and other craft used by the regime’s air force. Locals and resistance sources both denied that the junta’s detainees had any connection to anti-junta armed resistance groups, including the Brave Warrior for Myanmar (BWN) organisation and allied groups that have claimed responsibility for the rocket strikes. “They arrested a married couple who run a tea shop in Thar Wut Hti,” a civilian resident of the town said. “The wife has been released, but the husband is still under interrogation. The rest are local people, including goatherds, cowherds, and farmers from near the village.” “The people who have been arrested are villagers living in the area where the military council believes rockets were fired from. They are just ordinary farmers and civilians,” a BWN officer said. Resistance groups have also reported that the members of the BWN and allied groups who participated in the attack on the air base safely returned to their respective bases. According to the BWN, the attack killed at least 34 junta personnel and damaged warehouses and buildings. The military council, by contrast, has claimed there were no casualties from the incident or damage to the air base’s structures. Junta forces surrounded and searched nearby villages following the rocket strikes, arresting Pyae Phyo Aung and Thet Khaing Htun of Hayman village in the Thit Kyein village tract. The junta claimed to have found four damaged rocket launch pads in the union territory’s Lewe Township that were used in the attack on the air base, and three launch pads that had been prepared for use near Aung Say Ta Nar, a small village of 67 households and just over 100 inhabitants in Lewe Township. In a public statement, the junta also claimed to be holding 15 more people for detention and questioning based on evidence from the interrogation of the first two detainees. Details about the status of the detainees are unavailable at the time of reporting. Hayman, the first two detainees’ home village, is on the Taunghpilar road connecting Thar Wut Hti to the hill villages of Pyinmana just east of Naypyitaw. The village is located near Thar Wut Hti and more than an hour's drive from the Aye Lar air force base that was the target of the attack.

Myanmar military arrests 17 locals after Naypyitaw air base attack

After detaining and questioning two villagers who had no resistance affiliation according to the groups responsible for the attack, junta authorities claim to have arrested 15 more based on evidence from the initial interrogations

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