Local defence forces launched lethal attacks this week on two junta columns moving through Kani and Myaung townships in Sagaing Region, reportedly causing multiple junta casualties.
On Tuesday, resistance fighters ambushed more than 80 soldiers in Kani as they marched on foot along the western shore of the Chindwin River in order to secure passage for military vessels. Hundreds of homes have been destroyed in junta assaults along the waterway.
A clash broke out at around 8am near the villages of Tazei Chaung and Nyaung Pin Wun, three miles from Kani’s administrative centre. The township is one of many in Sagaing affected by a recent military-imposed blackout on phone and internet services.
“We waited for them in a field and opened fire when they were halfway in, so we managed to kill many of them,” said AT, a member of the Kyauk Lone Gyi Brigade—one of the Kani-based resistance forces involved in the attack.
Defence forces claimed that a military captain and up to 30 troops were killed in the assault. Myanmar Now was unable to independently verify the number of casualties.
By noon, the military had launched an airstrike on the area, which it preceded with an attack using commercially available drones with bombs attached—a weapon which AT said that he had not seen the junta’s forces previously employ in the area.
“They attached 60mm shells to drones and dropped them on the area before the airstrike. Previous junta columns didn’t have drones like this,” he explained.
A member of another local defence force involved in the clash said that up to 11 resistance fighters were injured by the bombs dropped from the drones.
While the guerrilla forces retreated, the military reportedly captured seven locals in hiding and forced them to serve as human shields. The presence of the civilians among the troops forced resistance fighters to abandon a plan to launch a counterassault using explosive devices, AT said.
Two days earlier, in Myaung—which borders Mandalay Region—an alliance of 11 defence forces from Mandalay and Sagaing attacked another junta column responsible for the recent burning of some 100 homes in villages in the northern part of the township.
The 120 soldiers were ambushed as they raided and set fire to more than 40 houses in the village of Tay Ma Say Kan after torching nearly 60 homes in Zayat Kone, where they had been stationed, according to a statement released by the Chaung-U People’s Defence Force (PDF) on Wednesday.
“We attacked them from both the front and from behind,” Zarni Thein, the leader of the Chaung-U PDF, said. “It’s like they were burned by their own fire. It’s the price they had to pay for destroying our villages.”
He claimed that 12 troops were killed during the two hours of late afternoon fighting, and five more, including a lieutenant, died later of their injuries. Myanmar Now was unable to confirm the reported 17 junta casualties, but received photos and videos from the battle site showing a number of slain troops.
An information officer from the TTA Guerrilla Force in Mandalay’s Taungtha Township—which was part of the resistance coalition involved in the attack in Myaung—told Myanmar Now that junta soldiers were distracted by the defence forces’ use of a drone camera and many were killed trying to shoot it down.
“They were chasing the drone, not knowing that we were waiting to ambush them. They ran straight into our killing field,” he said, adding that the allied resistance forces employed heavy artillery and RPGs.
Ye Lin, a 22-year-old member of the Myaung Special Defence Force, was reportedly killed by military artillery fire, and six more resistance fighters were injured.
“The military relentlessly fired heavy artillery shells while we were retreating so that we wouldn’t be able to collect the dead bodies of the junta soldiers,” the Chaung-U PDF’s Zarni Thein told Myanmar Now.
