Four members of an urban guerrilla group were killed on Monday in a shootout with junta forces in Patheingyi, a town just northeast of Mandalay, according to local sources.
A resident of the area said that the incident occurred near the Hospital for Respiratory Diseases on 19th Street in the early afternoon.
“We could hear a series of gunshots at around 1:30pm, but it lasted just a few minutes. Then four ambulances were seen heading towards the area,” said the resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
In a statement released later the same day, Myanmar’s junta identified the group involved as Generation Z Power (GZP). The victims were the group’s deputy commander, Thet Naing Tun (aka Kywe Gyi), its treasurer Moe Ko (aka Akyi Kaung), and two other members named Zaya and Kyaw Swar Linn.
According to the statement, the shootout started after the GZP members attacked a motorcyclist near the hospital.
However, a group called Patheingyi Information-PIF, which monitors the situation in the town, said that the guerrilla force members were chased down and shot, and that an innocent bystander was also killed.
The group said in a statement released on Tuesday that the junta forces also took the motorcycle of the murdered civilian.
Myanmar Now contacted the group through its social media account, but it would only confirm the deaths and not elaborate on any further details.
GZP is a well-organised urban guerrilla force based in Mandalay. Founded on March 27, 2021, at the height of crackdowns on anti-coup protests, the group revealed in September this year that 14 of its members had been killed and six were captured.
Several other violent incidents have been reported in Mandalay since late last week, despite tightened security in the city.
On Friday, a man in his 60s was killed at a coffee shop when a bomb went off near the Mya Taung Monastery in Maha Aungmyay Township. A car was also damaged in the blast, according to witnesses.
No group claimed responsibility for the explosion.
The next day, a deputy ward administrator in the same township named Htun Myint Aye died on the way to the hospital after being shot twice at about 11am, a source in the area said.
Junta soldiers arrived half an hour later and searched houses near the scene of the shooting. Six people at a nearby tea shop were beaten and arrested, the source said. Several employees of the tea shop were interrogated and also arrested, he added.
GZP claimed responsibility for the killing, saying that the victim was working with regime authorities and bullying residents of his ward.
On Sunday, a suspected police informant named Kyaw Zin Htet, 27, was shot dead by two gunmen at a noodle shop in Maha Aungmyay Township. He died at the scene after being shot in the face and neck, according to a local resident.
An urban guerrilla group called Special Task Force-Mandalay said it carried out the assassination. In a statement, the group added that its members managed to safely flee the scene.
