A soldier from Kachin Region People’s Defence Force (KPDF) was killed, and three civilians, including a woman, were wounded by a State Administration Council (SAC) airstrike in Moetar Lay, located in Sagaing Region.
An officer with the armed group informed KNG that a jet fighter dropped two 500-pound bombs on Moetar Lay and another village called Kyun Pin Tha in Katha Township at around 11:30 am on Tuesday. He explained that resistance fighters had stopped in Moetar Lay before the airstrike occurred that resulted in the destruction of eight homes. Fortunately, no one was injured in Kyun Pin Tha, which is only three miles away.
“The jet fighter precisely hit the target,” in a house, a local resident told KNG, suspecting that an informant may have informed the military regime about the soldiers’ presence in the village. He pointed out that a precision attack of this kind had never happened before in the area.
Since early December, SAC’s notorious Tiger Beluu (Tiger Ogre) column has been terrorising people in the township. The soldiers killed six members of a PDF on December 16 and 20, including members of the Moetar Lay Drone unit, and a male civilian in Aung Pon on December 23.
Katha Township, situated next to Kachin State, holds strategic importance for both the resistance and SAC. The capital town of Katha, believed to be the inspiration for the late English novelist George Orwell’s “Burmese Days”, is located on the banks of the Irrawaddy River.
