An armed resistance rises in Myanmar

As the nation’s military kills, assaults and terrorizes unarmed civilians each day, some protesters say there is no choice but to fight the army on its own terms. So groups of students, activists and office workers have mobilized with weapons into a kind of guerrilla force.

As protesters in the cities build barricades to protect neighborhoods from military raids and march on, the forces in the forests are training in basic warfare techniques and plotting to sabotage military-linked facilities.

The boldness and desperation of the new front are a response to the military’s ruthless crackdown, with 275 people killed. Security forces have fired at bystanders, ambulances and tortured detainees. Dozens of young protesters have been killed by single gunshots to the head.

How it looks: The frontline fighters have piled up sandbags and built bamboo barricades, which they defend with homemade firebombs. In some cases, they have the backing of ethnic insurgencies that have for years been targeted by the Tatmadaw, as the military is known.

Quotable: “We have to attack them back,” said a woman from Yangon who was in the forest for a week of boot camp. “This sounds aggressive, but I believe we have to defend ourselves.”
The New York Times