YANGON: Four protesters and at least two officers were killed as Myanmar soldiers battled an anti-junta civilian militia with small arms and grenades in the country’s second city Tuesday, authorities and military sources said.
Fighting has flared across Myanmar since the February coup as people form “defense forces” to battle a brutal military crackdown on dissent, but clashes have largely been restricted to rural areas.
Acting on a tip-off, security forces raided a house in Mandalay’s Chan Mya Tharsi township on Tuesday morning, the junta’s information team said in a statement, and were met with small arms fire and grenades.
Two officers were killed during the raid, military sources said, and at least ten were wounded.
Four “terrorists” were killed and eight arrested in possession of homemade mines, hand grenades and small arms, a junta spokesman said in a statement.
“We could hear artillery shooting even though our house is far from that place,” a Mandalay resident said.
Another four members of the self-defense group were killed when the car they were attempting to flee in crashed, the spokesman said, without providing details.
The United States’ embassy in Yangon said on Twitter it was “tracking reports of ongoing fighting in Mandalay... We are disturbed by the military escalation and urgently call for a cessation of violence.”
The mass uprising against the military putsch that toppled the government of Aung San Suu Kyi has been met with a brutal crackdown that has killed more than 870 civilians, according to a local monitoring group.
As well as the rise of local self-defense forces, analysts believe hundreds of anti-coup protesters from Myanmar’s towns and cities have trekked into insurgent-held areas to receive military training.
But part-time fighters know the odds are stacked against them in any confrontation with Myanmar’s military — one of Southeast Asia’s most battle-hardened and brutal.
Six killed in clashes between Myanmar army and anti-junta militia
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Six killed in clashes between Myanmar army and anti-junta militia
- Fighting has flared across Myanmar since the February coup as people form ‘defense forces’ to battle a brutal military crackdown
‘Doomsday Clock’ moves closer to midnight over threats from nukes, climate change, AI
- At the end of the Cold War, the clock was as close as 17 minutes to midnight. In the past few years, to address rapid global changes, the group has changed from counting down the minutes until midnight to counting down the seconds
WASHINGTON: Earth is closer than it’s ever been to destruction as Russia, China, the US and other countries become “increasingly aggressive, adversarial, and nationalistic,” a science-oriented advocacy group said Tuesday as it advanced its “Doomsday Clock” to 85 seconds till midnight.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist members had an initial demonstration on Friday and then announced their results on Tuesday.
The scientists cited risks of nuclear war, climate change, potential misuse of biotechnology and the increasing use of artificial intelligence without adequate controls as it made the annual announcement, which rates how close humanity is from ending.
Last year the clock advanced to 89 seconds to midnight.
Since then, “hard-won global understandings are collapsing, accelerating a winner-takes-all great power competition and undermining the international cooperation” needed to reduce existential risks, the group said.
They worry about the threat of escalating conflicts involving nuclear-armed countries, citing the Russia-Ukraine war, May’s conflict between India and Pakistan and whether Iran is capable of developing nuclear weapons after strikes last summer by the US and Israel.
International trust and cooperation is essential because, “if the world splinters into an us-versus-them, zero-sum approach, it increases the likelihood that we all lose,” said Daniel Holz, chair of the group’s science and security board.
The group also highlighted droughts, heat waves and floods linked to global warming, as well as the failure of nations to adopt meaningful agreements to fight global warming — singling out US President Donald Trump’s efforts to boost fossil fuels and hobble renewable energy production.
Starting in 1947, the advocacy group used a clock to symbolize the potential and even likelihood of people doing something to end humanity.
At the end of the Cold War, it was as close as 17 minutes to midnight. In the past few years, to address rapid global changes, the group has changed from counting down the minutes until midnight to counting down the seconds.
The group said the clock could be turned back if leaders and nations worked together to address existential risks.
