Resistance fires on regime’s top military academy in Mandalay Region

An anti-junta resistance team carried out a mortar attack on the military’s Defence Services Academy (DSA)—the junta’s leading facility for training officers—in the early hours of the morning on Monday in Pyin Oo Lwin, Mandalay Region. At least one artillery shell landed near the DSA campus’s “Cadet Statue” entrance on the Mandalay-Lashio road at around 3am. "There were two explosions. They were quite loud. The whole town shook and everyone heard,” said a man who lives near the DSA. The Mandalay Region People’s Defence Team (Mandalay Region PDT) claimed responsibility for the attack. The Mandalay Region PDT operates locally under the command of the publicly mandated National Unity Government (NUG), which issued a public statement on Monday evening claiming five 107mm artillery rounds were used in the shelling. Four of the five shells exploded near dormitories on the DSA campus, according to the NUG’s statement. The man living near the DSA, who asked to remain anonymous for security reasons, told Myanmar Now that the shells had detonated within 100 feet of the Cadet Statue Gate, damaging a wall and the nearby road. “In the morning, they came right away to repair the damage," the man said on Monday. “They also repaired the road and the brick walls. They’re still working to fix the power lines.” In an apparent response to the attack, the military has tightened security in and near Pyin Oo Lwin’s urban centre on Monday morning, sending troops on regular patrols throughout the town, according to two other Pyin Oo Lwin residents. The shelling of the DSA was the second such attack by resistance forces against high-profile targets within four days. Early Thursday morning, anti-junta fighters also attacked the Aye Lar air force base, the military headquarters, and the junta chief Sen.-Gen. Min Aung Hlaing’s office in Naypyitaw using 29 drones. Since the 2021 coup in Myanmar, which has forced the military to fight armed resistance and ethnic organisation on multiple fronts throughout the country, Pyin Oo Lwin and the administrative capital Naypyitaw have been among the safest places for military officers due to heightened security. Every year, Min Aung Hlaing attends festivities for Thingyan—the holidays leading up to the traditional Buddhist New Year—in Pyin Oo Lwin with his family. According to sources connected to the military, he has made plans to visit Pyin Oo Lwin again this year during Thingyan, which falls within the coming week. Junta chief attending the army’s Thingyan festival in 2022 (Photo: Military council’s ministry of information) It is not yet known whether the junta chief will change his plans to go to Pyin Oo Lwin after Monday’s attacks. The military council has acknowledged the attacks in Naypyitaw, also claiming to have shot down and destroyed drones used in the attack. However, the junta has not released any public statements regarding the attack on the DSA as of Monday evening. The recent assaults on junta targets echo incidents from before the coup. In August of 2019, a grouping of ethnic armed organisations called the Northern Alliance carried out attacks in five locations including the Defensive Services Technological Academy (DSTA) in Pyin Oo Lwin, which resulted in at least one death and one injury. Pyin Oo Lwin locals who recalled the earlier attack said the explosions at the DSA on Monday were louder. Junta chief attending a Thingyan festival organised by the army in Pyin Oo Lwin in 2022.

Resistance fires on regime’s top military academy in Mandalay Region

The military has not publicly acknowledged the attack, but locals living near the institution for officers in training said resistance shelling caused extensive damage to the wall near the campus entrance on the Mandalay-Lashio road

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