Yangon, Myanmar–

Rocket attacks by anti-coup fighters in Myanmar killed four people and injured 12 others, including cadets at the military’s elite officer academy, junta officials said on Monday.

Myanmar’s military authorities, struggling to maintain control of the country in the face of escalating armed opposition, condemned the attack in the central town of Pyin Oo Lwin as targeting civilians.

Myanmar is mired in conflict, with the military, which seized power in a 2021 coup, battling multiple armed resistance groups across the country and suffering heavy losses in recent months.

The junta said fighters from the local People’s Defense Forces (PDF) – an armed group of pro-democracy civilians who rise up to fight the army – “randomly fired” 11 rockets on Sunday night, hitting the A hospital, monastery and hotel. .

The dead were said to include two monks.

Pyin Oo Lwin is a former British mountain refuge near central Mandalay and home to the Defense Services Academy, Myanmar’s equivalent of West Point or the UK’s Sandhurst College.

Junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun confirmed that three trainees at the academy were injured in the attack.

A spokesman for the Mandalay Defense Force said the attack was carried out by its armed men, adding they only targeted the academy.

The army suffered a major blow last week when it was driven out of a major trading center near the Thai border after days of clashes with ethnic armed groups and other anti-junta fighters.

Thai authorities say they are preparing to receive up to 100,000 people displaced by the conflict.

The military seized power from Aung San Suu Kyi’s civilian government in February 2021, and a crackdown on resistance to her rule has killed more than 4,800 civilians, according to local monitoring group AAPP.