Myanmar insurgents attack elite army college
YANGON: Ethnic insurgents launched fresh attacks across northern Myanmar yesterday, burning a police post and killing at least one civilian staff member at an elite military college, an army spokesperson said.
The Northern Alliance, a collective of armed groups active in the region, claimed responsibility for the attacks on the Defence Services Technological Academy in Pyin Oo Lwin, western Shan state, and four other targets.
Army spokesperson Tun Tun Nyi said soldiers were fighting insurgents in Naung Cho township near the Gokteik viaduct, a towering railway bridge.
Another bridge had been destroyed by insurgents who also burned down the township’s narcotics police office, he said. “There are casualties… but we cannot confirm the number yet.”
Fighting was also reported at a toll gate on the highway to Lashio, the largest town in Shan state, a fire services official said. The attacks mark a major escalation in a decades-old conflict in the region, where several groups are fighting for greater autonomy for ethnic minorities.
A months-long ceasefire agreement that ended in June was recently extended until the end of August. A spokesperson for the Northern Alliance, Mong Aik Kyaw, said it was responding to recent army action in ethnic areas. “We aim to change battlefronts, as the Burmese military are increasing offensives in ethnic areas.
“The Aung San Suu Kyi-led… government is trying to make peace, but nothing can happen if the military doesn’t participate in it.”
The renewed fighting is a further setback for civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s bid to bring peace to the country. But the conflict has escalated in northern Kachin and Shan states, as well as the western Rakhine region on the border with Bangladesh.
Most recently, government troops have been locked in fierce fighting in Rakhine with insurgents belonging to the Arakan Army, a group that recruits mostly from the Buddhist Rakhine majority in the area.
A spokesperson for the Arakan Army, Khine Thu Kha, which is allied with the Northern Alliance, said: “We made a counter-attack against the Burmese army, as they did offensive attacks in the land of our comrades. They announced ceasefires, but attacked wherever they wanted to.” |