Myanmar Military Attack

At least 50 people, including civilians, were killed in central Myanmar early Tuesday after the nation's military junta launched an airstrike on an antigovernment ceremony outside the city of Mandalay, the nation's second-largest. Members of the People's Defense Force—the armed wing of the opposition, prodemocracy National Unity Government—were opening a local office in Pa Zi Gyi village when fighter jets attacked.

Myanmar—also known as Burma—has been fighting one of the world's longest-running civil wars, a conflict driven by the country's nearly 100 ethnic minorities (see background). Despite a brief period of multiparty democracy last decade, a coup in 2021 returned the southeastern Asian country to military rule, prompting lawmakers from jailed civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi's party to form an alternative government, which today reportedly controls almost half of the country's territory.

The junta has promised to hold elections in August of this year after extending a February 2021 state of emergency for the third time.