The fall of the Myanmar military’s Western Command headquarters in Rakhine State’s Ann Township last month has exposed regime weapons factories along the Irrawaddy River to resistance attacks.
There are 25 weapons factories in Myanmar, 15 in Magwe Region, seven in Bago Region, two in Naypyitaw’s Tatkone, and one in Yangon’s Taikkyi Township.
The weapons factories in Magwe and Bago are located on the west bank of the Irrawaddy River.
General Ne Win’s Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP) regime began building munitions factories after China provided extensive military aid to the Communist Party of Burma (CPB) in 1968, leading to intense fighting between the Myanmar military and CPB in northern Shan State.
This article has interesting tidbit of post-WW2 history on Burma. The reason why the munitions factories were set on west bank of Irrawady was to keep them away from the Chinese-backed guerillas, formerly the Communist Party of Burma which has broken up into United Wa State Army (UWSA), MNDAA, and NDAA. UWSA is Wa ethnics but whose leaders are Han Chinese and thus speaks and made Mandarin official language), MNDAA are Kokang Han Chinese, and NDAA are Shans.