Resistance fighters killed three police officers and seized regime security outposts on Friday in and around the Kayah State township of Demoso.
The Karenni People’s Defence Force (KPDF), formed recently by civilians who took up arms to defend themselves from military attacks, said there were clashes in three areas both inside and outside the town.
The fighting stopped at around 4pm on Friday, the group said.
The three police officers were killed during a clash in the town and a resistance fighter was injured, though not severely, a member of the KPDF said.
On Thursday soldiers fired guns in residential wards and arrested 13 people, including four civil servants who defected from the regime, the KPDF fighter said.
The next day the military strafed residential areas with explosive munitions.
“They fired heavy artillery continuously, except when they were taking breaks to eat. They aimed at places where they thought we might be stationed,” he said. “They invaded our territory. They tried to do to Demoso what they did in Loikaw, and people here responded.”
In March and April the junta’s armed forces killed three civilians in Loikaw, the state capital, as part of its effort to terrorise people into submitting to its rule.
During the clashes on Friday afternoon, the KPDF seized three security outposts from the military in Demoso and Bawlakhe townships with the help of a local ethnic armed group.
The KPDF did not reveal which group it was but the Karenni Army, the armed wing of the Karenni National Progressive Party, is active in the region. There was a clash on Thursday morning between regime forces and the Karenni Army near Hpaswang township.
Bombs went off at the township administration office in Demoso as well as a local sports stadium on Friday.
State media said three members of the security forces were killed in an ambush by 20 “armed rioters” in Demoso on Friday. It added that the regime arrested 15 locals, including two women.
Two of the detainees died in regime custody during an ambush against security forces by around 80 “terrorists” near the village of Ngwe Taung, the report said.
By Friday, the town was almost deserted after residents fled to neighbouring villages.
“Nine out of ten families might have fled already. Residents from most of the wards are no longer in the town,” a resident said on condition of anonymity.
The military deployed about a thousand soldiers along the Dawh Ngan Kha road in Demoso on Friday, the resident said. Soldiers shot at a motorcyclist and a passenger on the road, killing one of them, they added.
Myanmar Now was unable to independently verify the death.
The soldiers were from Light Infantry Battalion 102, according to the KPDF member, who added that the regime sent a few dozen troops to Demoso as reinforcements on Saturday.
“They might attack us like in Mindat. One thing that’s for sure is we will defend ourselves with guerilla tactics to minimise civilian casualties,” he said. “We will resist from here. We can’t move out. There are residential houses and we can’t let them occupy our town.”
In recent days regime forces have also sought to crush anti-coup activities in the neighbouring town of Hpruso, as well as in Hpasawng, another town about 100k away.
Like civilians who became fighters in Sagaing Region and Chin State, the KPDF is also armed with weapons that include traditional hunting rifles.
