War Against the Junta
Members of the KNLA and allied groups with seized ammunition after their raid on Taung Kalay Police Station on Monday.
Ten Myanmar junta personnel were reportedly killed when a combined force of resistance groups raided a police station in Mon State’s Kyaikmayaw Township early on Monday morning.
Fighters from local People’s Defense Force groups (PDFs) and the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), the armed wing of the Karen National Union (KNU), raided Taung Kalay Village Police Station, which is located in the KNU’s 6th Brigade area.
The clash lasted for around six hours and the police station was temporarily occupied at 11 a.m. During the raid, weapons, ammunition and other equipment were seized, according to Special Operation Force, which took part in the attack.
In response, the Myanmar military launched frequent air strikes involving both fighter jets and helicopters, and regime tanks and artillery units launched a sustained barrage of fire. The resistance forces had to retreat, but were able to do so safely.
Two civilians were killed and eight civilians including a 13-year-old child were injured in the Myanmar military’s attacks on Taung Kalay Village, according to a local rescue team.
Of the eight injured villagers, three, including the 13-year-old and a 60-year-old, were seriously wounded. One of the two dead civilians was a Taung Kalay villager and the other was a migrant worker.
“The migrant worker was lying beside the village road. We weren’t able to reach him during the clashes and when we arrived in the afternoon, he was dead,” a spokesperson for the local rescue team told The Irrawaddy.
Local residents reported hearing the sound of gunfire from around 5 a.m. on Monday. After an hour, a military fighter jet started bombing the village frequently. The residents also heard the sound of artillery.
The villagers phoned the team and asked to be rescued, but the volunteers were prohibited from entering the village until 1 p.m. Around 15 rescue ambulances from various townships including Mudon and Mawlamyine took the injured civilians and police officers to Mawlamyine Hospital and a military hospital.
The rescue team official said he didn’t know exactly how many police officers were injured during the raid.
Taung Kalay Village has more than 1,000 houses, which stand along the Kyar Inn Seik Gyi-Mudon highway.
Karen State’s Kyar Inn Seik Gyi Township neighbors Mon State’s Kyaikmayaw Township.
Junta troops deployed in the village fired artillery until evening, according to the Kyar Inn Seik Gyi Township People’s Administration Organization.
“Moreover, they threatened the villagers, saying that if they did not return to the village their houses would be torched,” said a spokesperson for the organization.
More than 10 houses and religious buildings were destroyed in the junta’s artillery and aerial attacks.
Villagers from Taung Kalay and thousands more from five nearby villages have been forced to flee their homes, with some taking refuge in rubber plantations.
The KNLA and allied forces raided Chaungnagwa Village Police Station, which is about 10 km from Taung Kalay, on Nov. 12, killing two police officers and detaining four, and seizing guns.