Guerrilla groups battling Myanmar’s military have claimed responsibility for a series of bombings in the biggest city of Yangon, group representatives told Radio Free Asia on Monday.
Since a February 2021 coup, armed groups in the former capital have launched attacks on government and junta-occupied buildings, as well as claiming the killing of administrators implementing the junta's widely unpopular conscription laws, announced in February this year.
Anti-junta activists claimed responsibility for attacks on a metal factory in Yangon’s Hlaing township, where the junta had stationed troops, and on a police station in Hlaingtharya township on Sunday night..
“We launched the attack as part of the ‘Urban Freedom’ operation in order to escape the military dictatorship,” said a member of the Yangon-based group Dark Shadow who declined to be identified.
The latest spate of violence included an attack with a grenade launcher on a police station, the anti-junta force member said.
The anti-junta groups had no information about casualties in the attacks.
RFA was not able to independently verify their accounts and the Yangon region’s junta spokesperson, Htay Aung, did not respond to telephone calls seeking comment.
The activist said the attacks were carried out with the assistance of an anit-junta network known as the Urban Support Campaign, which supplied the grenade launcher.
The Yangon Victory Force, another anti-junta group, also told RFA its members attacked the metal factory in Hlaing township with a remotely detonated landmine because a junta tactical operation command was stationed there.
Residents said they heard explosions from Hlaing township late on Sunday and after the blasts the junta has tightened security in the area.
On April 6, a group called Urban Special Force said it had attacked a junta army position near Aung Mingalar bus station in Yangon's Mingaladon township with long-range missiles.
Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.