Successful offensive: Members of the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army posing atop a captured tank. — AP
ARMED resistance groups fighting the country’s military government seized a district capital in the north after taking state offices and a police station in a four-day offensive, according to residents, the opposition coalition and media reports.
Kawlin in Sagaing region is the first administrative capital seized by the resistance forces in continuing strife since the army seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021.
Sagaing has been a stronghold of armed resistance to the army, which has responded with major offensives using ground troops supported by artillery and air strikes, burning down villages and driving hundreds of thousands of people from their homes.
Loosely organised resistance groups opposed to army rule, known as the People’s Defence Force, or PDF, have sprung up around the country since the army’s takeover.
They have made alliances with well-established armed ethnic minority groups such as the Kachin and Karen, who have been fighting in border areas for greater autonomy from the central government for more than half a century.
Kawlin, which is about 200km north of Mandalay, is the principal town of Kawlin district.
Clashes began there at dawn on Friday with coordinated attacks by a combined force of at least three local resistance groups including the Kawlin People’s Defence Force, according to reports posted online by media groups sympathetic to the resistance struggle.
Myanmar’s National Unity Government – the main organisation opposed to military rule – said in the statement posted on its Facebook page that resistance fighters had seized control Kawlin, adding that it was the first time that an administrative district capital had been attacked and captured.
Access to the Internet and mobile phone services in the area was almost entirely cut off as the fighting raged.
The victory came a week after the Three Brotherhood Alliance launched an offensive against the military government and seized three towns in the country’s northeast, including a major border crossing for trade with China.
The unexpected action by the alliance, composed of the Arakan Army, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, was seen as boosting the nationwide armed struggle to overthrow the military regime. — AP
