The Naypyitaw chapter of the People’s Defence Force (PDF) released a statement on Wednesday announcing that they had attacked a military column belonging to the coup regime on Monday and inflicted multiple casualties on the junta’s side.
The statement explained that the PDF, in cooperation with members of another unnamed Special Region armed group, had a clash with junta forces in Pyinmana Township at 4pm. The PDF then allegedly attacked a reinforcement column sent to the area by the military at 7pm that day.
Some 11 junta troops were reportedly killed in the clashes, according to the PDF’s Naypyitaw chapter.
The secretary of the National Unity Government’s (NUG) Ministry of Defence Naing Htoo Aung confirmed both the clash and the casualties, and told Myanmar Now on Friday that the account of the incident provided by the PDF was correct.
Gen Zaw Min Tun, the deputy minister of the junta’s information department, told pro-military People Media on Thursday that “there was no clash whatsoever” in the area in question.
“They’re trying to fool people from other regions into thinking that this is even happening in Naypyitaw,” Zaw Min Tun is quoted as saying.
Multiple Pyinmana locals told Myanmar Now that the PDF claim was in fact true, and that the military column was attacked by resistance forces in the southeastern part of the township, on a hillside near the Kayah State border on the easten bank of the Paunglaung River.
“Very few people go there. It’s quite an isolated area,” one of the locals said.
Another resident from the area also confirmed that the military column was attacked nearby, twice.
“The supply and transport force vehicle going toward Upper Myanmar triggered landmines. Then there was another clash with the reinforcement column in the evening,” the resident said, adding that it occurred between the villages of Aung Beik Theik and La Bet Taung. “We could hear the weapons. People from La Bet Taung couldn’t even sleep that night.”
In addition to denying that any clashes took place in the region serving as the junta’s capital, Gen Zaw Min Tun also said that there had been a decrease in bombings and ambushes in other regions against the junta’s armed forces throughout the country.
The military coup council has not released any statements on the daily bombings and attacks on military personnel and infrastructure, nor have they confirmed the number of casualties suffered by their forces in attacks by local defence forces and ethnic armed organisations.
