Myanmar rebels claim first capture of a district capital from Junta

Residents, the main opposition coalition in the nation, and media reports all claim that armed resistance groups opposing Myanmar’s military government captured a district capital in the north on Monday after seizing state offices and a police station during a four-day offensive.

The Sagaing region’s Kawlin is the first administrative capital taken over by the resistance forces in the ongoing conflict since the Myanmar army overthrew Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government in February 2021.

The Myanmar army has responded to Sagaing’s armed resistance with massive offensives involving ground forces backed by artillery and airstrikes, destroying villages and uprooting hundreds of thousands of people from their homes.

Since the army took over, loosely organised resistance groups known as the People’s Defence Force, or PDF, have emerged all over the nation in opposition to army rule. They have formed alliances with well-known, militarised ethnic minority groups like the Karen and Kachin, who have been engaged in border conflicts for more than 50 years in an effort to gain more autonomy from the central government.

The main town of the Kawlin district is Kawlin, which is located roughly 200 kilometres (125 miles) north of Mandalay, the second-biggest city in the nation.

According to reports posted online by media groups sympathetic to the resistance struggle, clashes broke out there at dawn on Friday with coordinated attacks by a combined force of at least three local resistance groups, including the Kawlin People’s Defence Force.

Videos that media outlets, such as Khit Thit Media, claimed to show resistance fighters removing the bodies of fallen police officers and soldiers from collapsed buildings were also uploaded online.

(With agency inputs)