An alliance of anti-regime forces overran a police station and three military outposts in eastern Karenni (Kayah) State’s Mese Township on Tuesday, according to a resistance source.
The outposts, which were each manned by around 20 troops from the military’s Light Infantry Battalion 430, were all targeted in a coordinated assault, Khun Nyay Reh of the Karenni Military Information Center (KMIC) told Myanmar Now.
The attacks took place shortly before dawn and triggered clashes that lasted until the junta troops were forced to retreat, he said.
“Of course we also had to retreat right after seizing the outposts as we knew the air force would soon come. So we just took what we could and withdrew right away,” he added.
At one outpost, near the village of Taung Hla on the eastern bank of the Salween (Thanlyin) River, the resistance forces captured two 120mm artillery guns, said Khun Nyay Reh.
The other two outposts were located near the village of Mei La Nwe and at Milestone 14 on the Thai-Myanmar border. A total of around 40 rifles were seized from all three outposts, according to the KMIC spokesperson.
He added that he couldn’t provide casualty figures, but confirmed that the township’s chief of police was killed in the attack on Mese’s central police station.
After the attacks, the military carried out six airstrikes between 10am Tuesday and 1am the following day, he said. More than 3,000 civilians from Mese and a camp for internally displaced persons near the Thai border were forced to flee, he added.
The allied forces involved in the attacks included the Karenni Army, the Karenni Nationalities Defence Force, and the People’s Defence Force under the command of the shadow National Unity Government.
Mese Township borders Thailand’s Mae Hong Son Province and is about 125km southeast of the Karenni State capital Loikaw.
