People’s Defence Force in Sagaing says it killed 180 junta troops with help of Kachin Independence Army 

People’s Defence Force (PDF) fighters in Sagaing Region have said they teamed up with the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) to kill more than 180 junta troops during five days of fighting last week.

The coup regime bombarded a temporary base of the PDF/KIA alliance with jets while alliance fighters sank military boats with rocket launchers and blew up personnel trucks with landmines, a local branch of the PDF said in a statement on Friday. 

The battle started last Monday in the neighbouring townships of Katha and Shwebu, which are near Sagaing’s border with Kachin State and sit along the Ayeyarwady river. 

Alliance fighters say three from their side were killed while another three went missing in action. Despite inflicting severe casualties on the Tatmadaw, they say they were eventually forced to retreat because of airstrikes on Friday. 

There were no casualties from the airstrikes, the Katha PDF said. 

The PDF’s announcement said the alliance fended off assaults by Tatmadaw battalions 304 and 309 near Myohla village in Shwegu. The Katha PDF fought under the leadership of the fifth battalion the KIA’s Brigade 8, it added. 

Ten Tatmadaw soldiers were killed by landmines on the first day of fighting, while the alliance killed another 60 when it fired RPGs at two military boats on the Kout Kwae waterway, which flows into the Ayeyarwady river in Shwegu, the statement said. 

Then on Wednesday more than 30 soldiers, including an officer, died in four different landmine explosions, it added. 

The battle intensified on Friday when Tatmadaw reinforcements arrived by land and air, the statement said, but the alliance held off the assault, killing around 50 soldiers and injuring 70 others. 

Another 30 soldiers died the same day in mine attacks on two vehicles carrying reinforcements near Paw Ma Myaing village in Katha, it said. 

A resident from the area told Myanmar Now they heard about 20 explosions during the Paw Ma Myaing battle as well as the sound of machine gun fire. 

The vehicles may have been carrying reinforcements to Shwegu and Myohla after shooting battles there the day before, the resident said. 

There was also a battle on Saturday morning, though there were no further details available at the time of reporting. 

A local living close to the PDF/KIA base said an airstrike destroyed a phone tower in Myohla during the fighting. 

“MPT was the only telecoms service provider available in Myohla and because that has been destroyed, no landline telephones are working anymore,” the local said. “It was an air raid by the military. We don’t know for sure if they targeted the tower or if it was just collateral damage.”

“Because the air raid included four jets, the alliance forces were forced to retreat from Myohla just this morning,” the local said on Saturday. 

The Tatamdaw buried its dead at the Moe Tar Gyi and Moe Tar Lay village tracts, near the villages of Oak Chay, Myohla, Mat Tine, Namsang and Subote Kone while the injured were taken away on boats, it added.

The KIA has not commented on the PDF’s announcement, and its information officer, Colonel Naw Bu, could not be reached for comment. 

After PDF forces killed dozens of Tatmadaw soldiers in Sagaing last month, there were reports that the KIA had assisted the resistance fighters. At the time, Naw Bu told Myanmar Now that the KIA’s leadership had given no official order to support PDF fighters in Sagaing, but that it was possible lower ranking troops decided to help. 

After vowing to oppose the military junta in the wake of its February coup, the KIA has launched numerous offensives against Tatmadaw bases and other targets in Kachin and Shan states.