Myanmar Now – Phyo Thiha Cho – February 27, 2025
Link to the original article: https://myanmar-now.org/en/news/resistance-targets-junta-security-outposts-on-key-highway-in-coordinated-attacks/
At least a dozen military checkpoints have come under attack this month on the Yangon-Mandalay highway, which links Myanmar’s largest cities and serves as a vital route for the military’s transport of supplies and troops.
The outposts, which resistance and anti-junta ethnic armed groups targeted for their strategic importance, are also crucial for the movement of regime troops in the small towns and villages of central Myanmar.
The publicly mandated National Unity Government (NUG) announced yesterday that its armed wing, the People’s Defence Forces (PDF), had collaborated with the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) on Wednesday and Thursday to attack seven junta outposts along the highway in eastern Bago Region.
Eight junta soldiers were killed and two injured in the attacks, according to the NUG’s statement, and the outposts, located in Bago Region’s Phyu and Kyauktaga townships, were destroyed.
One PDF fighter was also reported killed in the attacks. The NUG also urged civilians to avoid areas near military bases and checkpoints in their statement, warning that military activity in the Bago Region is set to intensify.
Tin Oo, a deputy commander operating in Bago within the NUG’s No. 2 Southern Military Region, told Myanmar Now that these operations are part of a broader, longer-term offensive against junta forces in central Myanmar.
“This is part of our ongoing military campaign. The attacks are aimed at clearing the enemy from their present positions, including towns and roads they have occupied,” Tin Oo explained.
In retaliation, junta forces based in Bago fired on resistance-occupied areas using heavy artillery, according to Tin Oo, injuring two children and one adult in Zee Kone village in Kyauktaga Township and one child in Phyu Township’s Kyaung Saung village.
The junta has not released any official statements regarding the attacks on its outposts, although regime-controlled media reported an incident of railway sabotage on the Yangon-Mandalay line on Tuesday evening.
Two days earlier, the NUG had released a video showing Prime Minister Mahn Win Khaing Than meeting with PDF battalion fighters ahead of their scheduled reassignment to Yangon and Bago regions. Since the video’s release, PDF forces have been launching assaults in the Sittaung River basin on the eastern side of the region.
The prime minister has said major clashes are expected in the area in the coming days as the resistance continues these manoeuvres as part of a broader strategy to establish control over the Yangon and Bago regions.
The Arakan Army (AA) and its allies have also been launching attacks in western Bago Region, while KNLA and PDF troops continue to target military positions in the east.