By Myanmar Now and AFP published by ChannelNewsAsia
TWO soldiers including a major were killed in the guerilla bomb attack against a military vehicle in Yangon’s Sanchaung Township on Thursday, it has emerged.
Several junta troops were riding in a truck near the intersection of Bargaryar and Baho roads at around 4 p.m. when a group of men tossed an explosive inside.
A major who was sitting in the front passenger seat was killed in a shootout following the explosion, several local media outlets reported.
The other soldier, a private, was in the back of the truck when he died. Further details about the dead soldiers were not immediately available.
The attack took place next to a busy market, but two guerilla groups who claimed responsibility said no civilians were harmed, the BBC’s Burmese service reported.
The groups, who call themselves Revolution Force and Generation Freedom Army, codenamed the attack Tigre Ogre, the outlet reported.
A man who witnessed the killings told Myanmar Now that he heard about 20 rounds of gunfire and then an explosion while driving in the area. As he was driving away, he saw four injured soldiers inside the vehicle.
“One was in the front seat covered with blood with the car door open,” he said. “There were three others in the back of the vehicle, also with blood on them. The one in the driver’s seat drove away quickly.”
About two hours later, another explosion was reported near the intersection of Baho road and Zeyawaddy road, a few hundred metres north of the site of the attack. The blast was reportedly a controlled explosion by soldiers after they found another bomb in the area.
According to an AFP report published by Channel NewsAsia security forces were travelling through Khayan, a suburb of Myanmar’s commercial hub Yangon on Friday (Sept. 17) when they were attacked with a homemade bomb, the junta said in a statement on Saturday.
“Both groups fired back and forth – a member of the security forces was injured,” the statement said, adding that firearms and ammunition were confiscated after the clash.
“Some terrorists were … (killed), one of them was wounded.”
Local media reported at least two dissidents were killed and one arrested.
The military has deployed soldiers throughout Sanchaung and in the neighbouring areas, according to residents. They ordered shopkeepers at the nearby Gwa market to shut their businesses and carried out searches on passersby.
They also searched a number of houses in the area throughout the evening.
On Friday, several roads in Sanchaung remained blocked and junta administrators announced via loudspeakers that the road at the scene of the attack would be restricted to one way traffic, a Sanchaung resident told Myanmar Now.
The local administrators also blocked street vendors from operating on Baho road and ordered people to take down parasols in the area, said another local resident.
Around 25 soldiers and police blocked Zeyawaddy road with about five trucks for several hours on Friday afternoon until around 6 p.m. and barred people from leaving their apartments, a resident there said.
He added that about five soldiers came to his apartment and asked for household registration documents and the number of residents living there. He later saw the same troops break a stairwell door to enter another apartment building nearby.
“They did searches at nearly every home in the street,” he said. “They seemed like they were looking for something or someone but I don’t know what it was and they didn’t say either.”
No one was arrested and the road was reopened after 6 p.m., he said, though a few soldiers stayed behind afterwards.
“What we have been feeling at this time is fear,” he added. “We are living in fear of what they might do to us. We all want to be free of that fear as soon as possible.”
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