The remains of houses torched on Tuesday by retreating regime forces in Bahin Village, Myaing Township. / CJ
At least 28 Myanmar junta forces have been killed in Magwe Region over the last two days, including pro-regime militia members and an administrator, and a police outpost seized as People’s Defense Forces (PDF) step up their attacks against the military regime.
After repeated attacks by PDFs, junta troops and police abandoned the police station at Bahin Village in the west of Myaing Township on Tuesday.
Before retreating, regime forces destroyed the police outpost and also torched 50 houses in Bahin Village, which has been empty for months after residents fled clashes between junta forces and resistance groups. One incapacitated police officer who was left behind by his colleagues was detained by PDF fighters.
Earlier on Tuesday, two clashes broke out in Myaing Township when a combined force of resistance groups ambushed the regime forces retreating from Bahin Village.
Myaing-PDF claimed to have killed over 10 regime soldiers and policemen after ambushing them with a cluster of eight land mines as they returned to Myaing Town.
Many more regime forces are also believed to have been killed on Tuesday afternoon in neighboring Pauk Township, when Myaing-PDF and Pauk-PDF opened fire on a vehicle transporting regime forces and used a land mine to ambush it, Myaing-PDF said.
Three other clashes also took place in Pauk Township on Tuesday, as resistance groups attacked a military detachment near Kyun Tine Village. Myaing-PDF, who were involved in the attack, claimed that 11 junta troops were killed in the ambush.
All of Kyun Tine Village was burned down by regime forces between November 20 and 22. After Tuesday’s ambush, junta soldiers torched houses in neighboring Gawegone Village.
Also on Tuesday, two pro-regime Pyu Saw Htee militia members were killed and others injured in Myaing Township when seven PDF groups ambushed a militia detachment escorted by junta soldiers as they were going to harvest peanuts on their farmland near a pro-regime village, said Wolf Underground Force, which took part in the attack.
On Monday, a pro-regime militia member was killed and four others injured in Myaing when a combined force of PDFs ambushed two vehicles traveling between pro-regime villages, according to Myaing-PDF, which coordinated the attack.
Pyu Saw Htee militia are notorious in Magwe for looting and burning houses in villages abandoned by residents fleeing junta raids.
Bo Latyar, a Myaing-PDF leader, told The Irrawaddy recently: “When they wake up, people here are not thinking about their businesses and livelihoods but about how to fight [regime forces] more effectively.”
He added that fighting the junta “has become part of life, like eating and sleeping.”
Another three regime troops were also killed in Magwe’s Pakokku Township on Monday, when resistance groups attacked junta soldiers stationed at Anouk Hpone Kan Village with heavy explosives and firearms, said the PDFs involved in the attack.
Women fighters from Earthquake PDF assassinated junta-appointed ward administrator U Myin Thein on Tuesday at his house in Pakokku. The administrator was notorious for oppressing civilians in the town, said Earthquake PDF.
Myanmar military forces are currently facing escalating attacks from PDFs and ethnic armed organizations across the country.
