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Pro-democracy fighters in Myanmar have captured a northwestern town on an important corridor for anti-junta forces after weeks of fighting, triggering sustained airstrikes by the military in response, residents and rebel soldiers told Radio Free Asia.
The town of Pinlebu, about 100 km (62 miles) east of Myanmar’s border with India, is close to routes along which insurgents can funnel troops and weapons from northern Myanmar to Chin and Rakhine states to the southwest.
Anti-junta forces captured it nearly a year ago but lost it to the military days later.
The fighters battling to end military rule launched their fifth bid to recapture the town on Aug. 15 and withstood 130 airstrikes in the days that followed, a pro-democracy People’s Defense Force, the PDF-Sagaing, said in a statement.
“We stormed the town on Monday night and by 6 a.m. we cleared out all the soldiers. The police station was cleared,” said a member of the PDF-Sagaing who was involved in the capture of the town.
The group gave no information about casualties on either side but said wounded junta soldiers and their relatives were allowed to withdraw to the town of Wuntho about 40 kilometers (25 miles) to the southeast.
Anti-junta forces had also taken prisoners, the group said, without elaborating.
RFA tried to contact the Sagaing region’s junta spokesperson, Nyunt Win Aung, for comment but he did not respond to calls.
The military’s response to the loss of the town came quickly, the fighter said: “The junta council started bombing with a Y-12 aircraft after the town was captured.”
Junta forces from its 301, 101 and 111 battalions, in addition to the pro-junta ethnic minority Shanni Nationalities Army’s battalion 614, were preparing to counter-attack while the military was reinforcing with its 363, 18, 368 and 87 battalions, the PDF said.
The latest setback for the junta that seized power in an early 2021 coup came as Southeast Asian leaders were meeting at a regional conference in Laos hoping to help find a way to end Myanmar's bloody chaos.
Jet strafes village
PDF groups aligned with the civilian shadow National Unity Government have sprung up across Myanmar to fight the military since the 2021 coup ended a decade of tentative democratic reform.
The PDFs mostly operate in central areas dominated by members of the majority Burman community.
Allied ethnic minority insurgent groups in more remote border areas have also launched major offensives over the past year putting the military under the most sustained pressure it has faced since shortly after independence from British colonial rule in 1948.
The military has increasingly resorted to deadly artillery barrages and airstrikes on areas controlled by the insurgents, taking an ever-heavier toll of civilians, rights groups including the U.N. human rights office say.
The capture of Pinlebu opens up access for the insurgents to another hotly contested township, Kawlin, about 50 km (31 miles) to the southwest, where on Tuesday an airstrike in Kone Ko Kone village killed three civilians and wounded two, residents told RFA.
“A fighter jet came in and opened fire three times at around 3:30 p.m. despite there being no fighting near the village,” said one witness who declined to be identified for fear of reprisals.
“Two men and a woman were killed, and some were injured,” the witness said, adding the men were 20 and 40 years old, and the woman was 40.
Residents said they did not know the reason for the attack but speculated it was because of the fall of Pinlebu to anti-junta forces.
A junta aircraft also attacked Oke Kan village in Kawlin township, killing seven civilians and injuring four, residents said.
Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.