PYIN OO LWIN, Myanmar: At least 14 people have been killed in ongoing fighting on Thursday between Myanmar’s military and rebels who mounted a series of attacks, including an unprecedented strike on an army academy, apparently in retaliation for massive drug seizures.
Ethnic armed rebel groups have for decades fought against the military -- and often between themselves -- for land and resources in Myanmar’s east. Experts say the area is now the world’s largest meth-producing region, funding the complex web of conflicts.
Thursday’s brazen assault targeted Pyin Oo Lwin, a tourist town near Mandalay, that is also home to barracks teeming with soldiers receiving training.
An AFP reporter at a police post, the site of one of the attacks, counted the bodies of seven soldiers and four policemen. Military spokesman Brigadier General Zaw Min Tun told AFP three more people, two soldiers and one civilian, had been killed and that fighting was "still ongoing".
This brings the death toll to at least 14. One of the five attacks targeted the town’s Defence Service Technology Academy, where military engineers are trained, the first-ever time the training centre has been hit.
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