Nikkei Asia reported that Soe Win, a four-star general in the Myanmar military, was the target of drone attacks in Mon State in southern Myanmar on April 8 and 9. Soe Win was attending a meeting at a military facility when the building and a parked helicopter were damaged. Soe Win was reportedly injured.

A source from the UAV unit of the People's Self-Defense Forces, a rebel group fighting against Myanmar's military government, told Nikkei Asia that two UAVs crashed into several buildings at the facility on April 8 and four UAVs crashed into buildings and a helicopter at the same facility on April 9.

Nikkei Asia Screenshot

The drone strikes followed an attack in the same state on April 6, when a drone bomb hit the convoy of General Mya Tun Oo, one of the top five officers in the Myanmar military. A military source told Nikkei Asia that a luxury car was damaged, but Mya Tun Oo was unharmed.

The Karen National Defense Organization (KNDO), an ethnic armed group in eastern Myanmar's Karen state, has signaled its involvement in the drone attack, and a KNDO source admitted to Nikkei Asia that it was responsible for the attack. The source added that the KNDO had been informed in advance of plans by General Mya Tun Oo and others to inspect the new airport in Mon.

There is currently no information on the Myanmar military's response to the above information.

The drone attacks came days after more than a dozen drones attacked military headquarters and a base in Naypyitaw on April 4. Myanmar state media reported that the drones were blown up or intercepted by government forces and that no facilities were damaged.

A series of recent UAV attacks shows a strategic shift by anti-Myanmar military forces from expanding their control in remote areas to attacking the military government's administrative center, according to Nikkei Asia .