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Insurgents in western Myanmar have captured an important military training base after a month of fighting, the rebel army said in a statement, dealing what is likely to be a severe blow to the embattled military.
.Arakan Army troops seized the Central Naval Diving and Salvage Depot between Thandwe township’s Maung Shwe Lay and Kwin Waing village in Rakhine state on Thursday, said the ethnic minority insurgent force battling for self-determination.
The Arakan Army, or AA, said the facility was the last naval base held by junta forces in Thandwe township, and it was defended on a “huge-scale” by the junta’s air force and navy as well as more than 1,200 soldiers, including many new graduates from the base.
“More than 400 junta soldiers were killed during our attack, and junta weapons, ammunition and equipment were seized,” the AA said in its statement.
Radio Free Asia was not able to independently verify that toll and the junta's main spokesperson, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, did not respond to requests for comment.
The AA posted pictures of its fighters standing by a diving boards at the training center.
The base is a major navy training facility and its loss will be of huge significance for the military, said Pe Than, a former member of parliament for the Arakan National Party, which in the past had affiliations with the AA.
“Losing such a base will affect training as well as fighting. They’ve destroyed the navy and weakened the army, like cutting a man off at the waist,” he said.
He said the Danyawaddy Naval Base in Kyaukpyu township, to the north of Thandwe, was the navy’s last facility in Rakhine state.
“The military is like a bird with one wing now,” he said.
The loss of the base will not only dent the junta’s morale and reputation but also bring in more resources for the AA through the control of goods coming through a nearby port, he said.
The AA said it expected junta retaliation against civilians in the area. Human rights investigators say junta forces have been increasingly attacking civilian targets as they lose ground to insurgent forces in different parts of the country. The military denies attacking civilians.
The Arakan Army, which launched a new offensive against the military in November, controls nine townships in Rakhine state and one in neighboring Chin state, and is battling to take full control of three other townships.
Junta forces have launched crackdowns in the north of the state, near the Bangladesh border, and across the neighboring Ayeyarwady region after AA gains in the south of the state.
Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.