LETPANHLA – A Myanmar junta airstrike on a village held by anti-coup fighters killed at least 12 people according to a local administrative official, who said the bombardment targeted civilian areas.

Myanmar’s military seized power in a 2021 coup which has plunged the country into a fractious civil war and analysts say the embattled junta is increasingly using air strikes to target civilians.

The Friday afternoon strike hit the village of Letpanhla around 60 kilometres (40 miles) north of the country’s second biggest city of Mandalay.

The village in Singu township is held by the People’s Defence Forces (PDF) — anti-coup guerillas who took up arms after the military toppled the country’s civilian government four years ago.

“A lot of people were killed because they dropped bombs on crowded areas,” said the local administrative official, who asked to remain anonymous. “It happened at the time people were going to the market”.

“We’re currently making a list and have registered 12 people killed,” he said on Saturday.

A junta spokesman could not be reached for comment and AFP could not independently verify the death toll. The local PDF unit reported there had been 27 fatalities.

Wails of grief

Witness Myint Soe, 62, said he tried to hide as an aircraft came in for a bombing run.

“I heard huge bomb blast sounds at the same time I was hiding,” he said.

“When I came out and looked at the market area I saw it was on fire.”

In the aftermath, buildings which appeared to be homes and a restaurant were ablaze, as people in civilian clothing and camouflage uniforms doused the flames with water.

The limp body of a child with a bloody head wound was loaded into the back of an ambulance by a man whose uniform was marked with the PDF insignia.

Wails of grief could be heard as some of the crowd glanced up towards the sky.

Myanmar is now controlled by a patchwork of junta forces, ethnic armed groups and anti-coup partisans.

The number of military air strikes on civilians has risen year on year during the civil war, according to non-profit organisation Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED), with nearly 800 in 2024.

That figure was more than triple the previous year and ACLED predicted the junta will continue to rely on air strikes because it is “under increasing military pressure on the ground”.

“The military will persevere in its indiscriminate aerial attacks on civilian populated areas in an effort to undermine the opposition’s support base and destroy their morale,” it said in December.

An offensive by an alliance of armed ethnic groups in late 2023 inflicted stinging territorial losses on the junta.

But analysts say the Myanmar air force, which operates with Russian technical support, has been key to fending off its adversaries based mainly in the borderlands.

More than 3.5 million citizens are currently displaced and half the population lives in poverty.

AN-AFP, 16 March 2025

ISLAMABAD – Pakistani security forces have killed at least 16 terrorists during an operation to rescue hostages following a train attack in the Kacchi district of the country’s southwest Balochistan province on Tuesday, security sources said.

The security sources told Xinhua at the wee hours of Wednesday that the military operation divided the terrorists into small groups, and an intense exchange of gunfire continued between the security forces and the attackers.

According to the sources, the security forces successfully freed 104 hostages from the terrorists, including 58 men, 31 women, and 15 children. At least 17 injured passengers have been shifted to a nearby hospital, said the sources, adding that efforts are going on to ensure the safe release of remaining passengers.

“Additional security personnel are participating in the ongoing operation. The noose around the terrorists has been tightened, and the operation will continue until the last terrorist is eliminated,” the sources added.

Earlier, official sources reported that a group of armed men opened fire on the Jaffar Express passenger train, which had about 450 passengers onboard, with several injured.

Senior Pakistan Railways official Muhammad Kashif told Xinhua that the train was running from the southwestern city of Quetta to the northwestern city of Peshawar when militants launched the attack.

“The attack occurred in a mountainous region where communication is severely restricted due to the lack of mobile service. In the last contact with the train, the driver reported that an explosion hit the railway track, forcing the train to stop. Immediately after, the militants opened heavy fire, injuring the driver and several passengers,” Kashif said.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif strongly condemned the attack on the train, praising the security forces for their bravery and professional expertise in confronting the terrorists.

“Despite the difficult terrain, the morale of the security forces involved in the operation remains high. We will continue this war against terrorism until this menace is completely eradicated from the country,” the prime minister said.

Sharif added that every conspiracy aimed at spreading unrest and chaos in Pakistan would be foiled, and “we will never allow the evil intentions of anti-state elements to succeed.”

The proscribed terrorist outfit Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement on a social media platform.

XINHUA

BEIRUT — Lebanon’s health ministry said five people were killed in Israeli strikes Wednesday on the municipality of the southern city of Nabatiyeh, after an official said the mayor was among the dead.

“The Israeli enemy raid… on two buildings, that of the Nabatiyeh municipality and the union of municipalities, killed five people in a preliminary toll,” the ministry said in a statement, adding rescuers were searching for survivors under the rubble.

The mayor of Nabatiyeh was among those killed, authorities said.

“The mayor of Nabatiyeh, among others… was martyred. It’s a massacre,” Nabatiyeh governor Howaida Turk said, adding he had been in the municipality building.

Hezbollah-affiliated rescuers also said several people were killed in the strike on the municipality building including mayor Ahmad Kahil.

The Israeli military launched strikes in southern Beirut on Wednesday, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed calls for a ceasefire in Lebanon, saying it would leave Hezbollah forces near his country’s border.

An AFP journalist saw black smoke rising from Beirut’s Haret Hreik area after two strikes, which followed an Israeli military warning for residents to evacuate.

One of the strikes targeted weapons “stockpiled by Hezbollah in an underground storage facility,” the military said.

AN-AFP

WASHINGTON — US Vice President Kamala Harris’s election campaign said on Sunday it has raised $200 million and signed up 170,000 new volunteers in the week since she became the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate.

President Joe Biden ended his reelection bid on Sunday last week and endorsed Harris for the Nov. 5 vote against Republican former President Donald Trump.

“In the week since we got started, @KamalaHarris has raised $200 million dollars. 66 percent of that is from new donors. We’ve signed up 170,000 new volunteers,” Harris’ deputy campaign manager, Rob Flaherty, posted on X.

Polls over the past week, including one by Reuters/Ipsos, show Harris and Trump essentially tied, setting the stage for a close-fought campaign over the 100 days left until the election.

Trump’s campaign said in early July that it raised $331 million in the second quarter, topping the $264 million that Biden’s campaign and its Democratic allies raised in the same period. Trump’s campaign had $284.9 million in cash on hand at the end of June while the Democratic campaign had $240 million in cash on hand at the time.

Harris has secured support from a majority of delegates to the Democratic National Convention, likely ensuring she will become the party’s nominee for president next month.

“So our vice president is the presumptive nominee. We will have the official vote on August 1,” Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison told MSNBC on Sunday.

Biden withdrew from the race amid questions about his age and health following a faltering debate performance against Trump in late June. Biden pledged to remain in office as president until his term ends on Jan. 20, 2025.

Harris’ takeover has reenergized a campaign that had faltered badly amid Democrats’ doubts about Biden’s chances of defeating Trump or his ability to continue to govern had he won.

Polls showed that Trump had built a lead over Biden, including in battleground states, after Biden’s disastrous debate performance.

A New York Times/Siena College national poll published Thursday found Harris has narrowed what had been a sizable Trump lead while Trump had a two percentage point lead over her in a Wall Street Journal poll published on Friday. A Reuters/Ipsos poll published on July 23 showed a two point lead for Harris.

Mitch Landrieu, a campaign co-chair, said on MSNBC that Harris “had one of the best weeks that we’ve seen in politics in the last 50 years.”

“This is going to be a very close race,” he said.

Trump’s fundraising surged when he was convicted in late May on felony charges related to a hush-money payment to a porn star ahead of the 2016 election. An assassination attempt against him this month was also expected to spur campaign contributions.

AN – REUTER