AA ramps up assault on last standing regime battalion in Maungdaw

By Admin 18 Oct 2024

DMG Newsroom
18 October 2024, Maungdaw

The Arakkha Army (AA) has stepped up attacks on the Myanmar military's Border Guard Police Battalion No. 5 in Maungdaw over recent days, with the regime responding to the ethnic armed group's assault using artillery and aerial support.

The AA began attacking the last standing junta battalion in besieged Maungdaw on October 14 and fierce clashes have continued to escalate there, local sources said.

A junta jet fighter dropped two bombs on AA positions close to 3rd-Mile Village, near the Border Guard Police Battalion No. 5 base, on Friday morning, said a source on the ground.

"It has been four days since the AA launched an offensive attack on the Border Guard Police Battalion No. 5. The regime responded to the AA attacks with aerial support," the source told DMG.

A Y-12 military aircraft airlifted weapons and food to the Border Guard Police Battalion No. 5 and nearby positions, the source added.

A junta jet fighter reportedly carried out airstrikes in Maungdaw Township from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on October 17.

Four civilians including a child were injured and some homes and shops were reduced to ashes in a regime air assault on Aungmingalar Village, Maungdaw Township, at around 2 p.m. on October 16.

Hundreds of local people from Thayargon, Aungzeya, Aungmingalar and Pharwatchaung villages, near the Border Guard Police Battalion No. 5 base, have been displaced by junta airstrikes.

"The AA launched an offensive attack on the Border Guard Police Battalion No. 5, using rockets, mortars and attack drones. Locals from nearby villages were displaced by the regime airstrikes. The displaced civilians are afraid that they will be attacked by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA)," said a local man.

The Dhaka-based Daily Sun newspaper reported that at least 26 houses in a village in Teknaf, Bangladesh, near the country's border with Myanmar, developed cracks due to vibrations caused by heavy weapons fire in neighbouring Arakan State.

Junta-held Maungdaw is situated on the Myanmar-Bangladesh border and is an important town for the military regime both economically and politically.