Myanmar military, insurgents battle over port town

Reuters:

Nov 17 – Myanmar’s military has launched attacks from the air and the sea to recapture a port town on the Bay of Bengal, an opposition alliance said on Friday, as junta forces face the fiercest offensive from their enemies in years.

The military, which seized power from an elected government in a 2021 coup, is battling a coordinated offensive launched last month by an alliance of three ethnic minority insurgent groups, as well as allied pro-democracy fighters who have taken up arms since the coup.

“The military attacked Pauktaw town with helicopters and artillery fire from a navy ship after we conquered the police station of the town in the morning,” the Three Brotherhood Alliance said on its Telegram channel, referring to the fighting in western Myanmar’s Rakhine State on Thursday.

“In the evening, junta troops came into the town and shot and killed civilians,” the alliance said.

Reuters could not independently verify the report and a junta spokesperson did not respond to request for comment.

Pauktaw is about 500 km (310 miles ) northwest of Myanmar’s main city of Yangon.

The offensive, which the insurgent alliance calls “Operation 1027” after the date it was launched, is the biggest the junta has faced in years.

Three rebel groups, aligned with pro-democracy fighters and a parallel, pro-democracy civilian government, have captured several towns and military posts across the country.

The Irrawaddy news portal, citing a resident of Pauktaw, said members of the Arakan Army (AA) guerrilla group had earlier taken control of the town.