PDF attempts seizure of junta police station following officer defection

A People’s Defence Force (PDF) chapter in Magway Region’s Pakokku Township attacked a regional police station on Wednesday but were forced to withdraw before they were able to destroy the site, members of the group said. 

Resistance fighters ambushed the station in Kya Htoe village at 6:30am, but the arrival of Myanmar army soldiers and members of the military-backed Pyu Saw Htee militia forced a retreat. 

An information officer for the Pakokku PDF said that a truck carrying 15 soldiers left the village of Myit Chay for Kya Htoe in an attempt to stop the attack, joined by two more vehicles from another village, Kamma, filled with troops and Pyu Saw Htee members. 

Kya Htoe is located nearly halfway between the 16km road connecting Myit Chay and Kamma. Resistance fighters anticipated the reinforcements’ arrival and attempted to stop them en route. 

“We managed to attack the car coming from Myit Chay with explosive devices. We also managed to attack a police car and a pick-up truck coming from Kamma as well,” the Pakokku PDF spokesperson said. 

Citing frontline sources, he said that some 20 soldiers were killed in the ambushes and 10 more were injured and sent to Pakokku hospital. 

Myanmar Now was unable to verify the reports of casualties. 

One of the vehicles made it to Kya Htoe, halting the PDF’s efforts to destroy the police station, although it was reportedly severely damaged by artillery fire. 

“We planned to torch the station but one of the cars made it through the explosive devices that we set up. They parked in front of the station and started to open fire,” the information officer said. 

A 24-year-old resistance fighter named Glock died after being shot three times, the PDF spokesperson told Myanmar Now. 

“He died while covering for the other members who were fleeing. The rest of the team made it back safely,” he added.

Phyo Min Aung, a police private who had been posted in Kya Htoe, deserted the station on June 3 and surrendered with his weapons and ammunition to the Myaung Villages Revolution Front (MVRF), a resistance group based in neighbouring Sagaing Region’s Myaung Township. 

He was rewarded 10m kyat (nearly US$5,400) by the MVRF for joining the anti-coup movement. 

Since his defection, junta forces had been more heavily stationed in the police post in the village.

The Pakokku PDF previously carried out a lethal attack on troops outside the Myanmar Economic Bank in the township on May 20, reportedly killing four soldiers.

On Tuesday, in Pauk Township—located west of Pakokku—a coalition that included the Southern Pauk People’s Defence Force seized and torched another junta police station in the village of Kaing Lel before junta reinforcements arrived by helicopter. 

Troops who had been stationed at the post in question were among those who had carried out raids on area villages, according to locals and resistance fighters.