10-11, the junta used two fighters to bomb the Chin National Front’s headquarters in Thantlang, killing five CNF soldiers and damaging a hospital and other buildings. “They mainly launch airstrikes to attack us” because they have been so effective.Īirstrikes were part of a bid by the military to regain control of the area in northwestern Myanmar because “everywhere other than the junta camp are under the control of regional defense groups,” he said.īased on the CHRO’s reporting, Thantlang was hit the hardest by air attacks in January and February as the junta targeted the area with 41 airstrikes and 115 bombs.
“But there aren’t any clashes on the ground,” he told RFA Burmese.
Salai Htet Ni, a spokesman for the Chin National Front, said that the junta had initially set out to crush his and other PDF groups in the area with ground troops reinforced by artillery shelling and airstrikes. But the strikes lead to significant collateral damage and sources say it is the civilian population that bears the biggest brunt of the attacks. The military is increasingly using airstrikes in its multi-front conflict with the armed resistance as it becomes more formidable and effective in its use of guerilla tactics to stymie ground assaults by junta troops. The strikes injured six civilians, the group said.
The military launched at least 53 airstrikes, dropping more than 140 bombs, on the townships of Mindat, Hakha, Matupi and Thantlang, the Chin Human Rights Organization said, killing five members of the Chin National Army and three members of local anti-junta People’s Defense Force paramilitary groups.
Myanmar’s military averaged nearly one airstrike per day on townships under martial law in Chin state, in the western part of the country, in the first two months of 2023 alone, an ethnic Chin minority rights group said Thursday, as NGOs urged governments to sanction companies selling jet fuel to the junta.
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