Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese.
The Arakan Army has seized a police station in the Ayeyarwaddy region, the first in Myanmar’s heartland to fall to the ethnic Rakhine rebels since the 2021 military coup.
Until now, the Arakan Army, or AA, has been fighting junta troops in Rakhine state, in Myanmar’s west, where it controls nearly all townships, and other states and regions on the country’s periphery.
Now the emboldened rebel army is moving beyond its traditional territory. Thursday’s capture of the police station in Pathein township is the latest sign that the junta is losing ground as the civil war grinds toward its fourth full year.
The AA, assisted by fighters with anti-junta People’s Defense Forces, or PDF, took the station in Shwethaungyan sub-township, near the border with Rakhine state on Thursday, despite the military launching several airstrikes to defend it, residents told RFA Burmese.
Ma Gyi Zin village and surrounding areas in the northernmost part of Shwethaungyan are now under AA control, the residents said Friday, speaking to RFA on condition of anonymity due to security concerns.
“Ma Gyi Zin, on the far side of Shwethaungyan, has fallen,” said a resident of the sub-township who is familiar with the military situation there. “Yesterday, the bombing targeted Pauk Taw Kwin and Ma Gyi Zin Pyar [villages], near Ma Gyi Zin village.”
RELATED STORIES
Myanmar’s junta answers rebel proposal for talks with week of deadly airstrikes
Myanmar’s Arakan Army takes a major town, says ready for talks
Ethnic rebels claim to control up to 85% of Myanmar’s Chin state
The resident said that the military launched airstrikes on Ma Gyi Zin Pyar, to the east of Ma Gyi Zin, “because [the junta’s] troops have already withdrawn from Ma Gyi Zin.”
“The village is already on fire, and this is what’s happening in the Ayeyarwaddy region,” he said.
The airstrikes caused casualties, the resident said, although exact details remain unclear.
The strikes destroyed Ma Gyi Zin village, along with schools and monasteries in nearby Pone Nyat Maw and Ku Lar Chaung villages, other residents told RFA.
The junta has stationed troops near Baw Mi village, south of the affected areas, to prepare to defend their position, they said, adding that “hundreds” of military troop reinforcements are being sent to the area from nearby Thabaung sub-township.
The number of people who have fled Ma Gyi Zin and nearby villages to Chaungthar, Shwethaungyan and Thabaung sub-townships is unknown.
When contacted, Khin Maung Kyi, the junta’s Ayeyarwaddy regional spokesperson and minister of social affairs, said he was “unaware of the current situation” regarding the battles.
Moving beyond Rakhine state
Since early January, the AA, which controls nearly all townships in Rakhine state, has been attacking military bases in the bordering regions of Ayeyarwaddy, Bago and Magway, according to residents.
On Dec. 29, AA insurgents captured the west coast town of Gwa from the military, a major step toward their goal of taking the whole of Rakhine state, and then said they were ready for talks with the junta, which seized power in a February 2021 coup d’etat.
However, nearly a week later, the military had carried out at least six airstrikes since the proposal in the AA-controlled townships of Ponnagyun, Ann, Gwa and Myebon, killing 10 civilians and injuring more than a dozen others, residents told RFA Burmese.
Translated by Kalyar Lwin. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.