Myanmar insurgents say they launched rocket attack on junta deputy

Pro-democracy fighters in Myanmar launched a barrage of rockets at junta facilities in the eastern town of Loikaw as the deputy of the ruling military council was visiting, a rebel group said on Wednesday.

There was no confirmation from the junta of the Tuesday night attack and the anti-junta Brave Warriors for Myanmar, or BWM, militia force said it had no information about casualties.

The group said its members fired five 107 mm rockets to the State Hall in Loikaw, capital of Kayah state, and two rockets at a regional military command headquarters in the town as junta deputy Lt. Gen. Soe Win was visiting for Kayah State Day on Wednesday.

“We want to make sure that even the deputy leader of the junta council is worried about his life, that’s why we had to attack,” an official from the militia group told Radio Free Asia.

He said his group was trying to gather information about the attack, which was organized with help from two other militia groups, the Mountain Knight Civilian Defense Forces and the Anti-Coup People’s Liberation Force.

A Loikaw resident said that he heard loud explosions and the sound of shooting on Tuesday night while some pro-junta channels on the Telegram messaging service said rockets had exploded at Loikaw’s airport and nowhere else.

RFA tried to telephone the junta spokesman for Kayah state, Zar Ni Maung, but could not get through.

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Anti-junta forces have on several occasions used short-range 107 mm rockets in actual or planned attacks on junta leaders, including its chief, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing.

It was not the first time that Lt. Gen. Soe Win has been in the vicinity of an insurgent attack.

On April 8, 2024, anti-junta fighters used drones to attack the Southeast Regional Military headquarters in Mawlamyine town when he was visiting.

There was speculation at the time that he had been hurt in the attack and he was not seen in public for about a month afterwards, fueling rumors he had been wounded.

Military-controlled media on Wednesday made no mention of any rocket attack in Loikaw but newspapers did carry a Kayah State Day statement from the junta chief, in which he called for people to reject the armed opposition and blamed the democracy supporters and foreign countries for “terror acts.”

“The current instability and terror acts occurring within the country are the result of individuals claiming to be promoting democracy, but instead, they have resorted to electoral fraud to unlawfully seize state power,” he said, apparently referring to Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, which won elections in 2015 and 2020. He made no mention of any attack in Loikaw.

“Rather than resolving issues through lawful democratic methods, they have chosen armed terrorism approaches,” he said.

The military complained of fraud in the 2020 polls, despite there being no evidence of any major cheating, organizers said, and ousted Suu Kyi’s government in a coup on Feb. 1, 2021. She and many others have been locked up ever since.

Min Aung Hlaing also accused foreign countries of “supporting dictatorship disguised as democracy.”

“Some foreign countries, which claim to be defending democracy, are also supporting and encouraging armed terror attacks that are directly or indirectly against the democratic system,” Min Aung Hlaing said. He did not identify any countries.

While Aung San Suu Kyi and her government attracted diplomatic and economic support from Western countries and some Asian neighbors, no foreign governments are known to have supported any anti-junta forces.

The military gets most of its weapons from Russia and China.

Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.

This post was originally published on Radio Free.