Necessary and proportionate? Potential ‘unprovoked’ airstrikes in January 2025

Executive summary

This report investigates claims of Myanmar military airstrikes on villages and assesses whether they were isolated incidents or part of a broader pattern. While the State Administration Council (SAC) claims that airstrikes are necessary, targeted responses to immediate threats or terrorism, Myanmar Witness monitored five States and Regions in Myanmar – Mandalay, Kachin, Rakhine, Shan and Tanintharyi – in January 2025. The aim was to determine whether airstrikes generally occurred in response to clashes with resistance forces, supporting the SAC’s claim that they were isolated events. 

Reported airstrike incidents were widespread in the states and regions covered, with 46 pieces of data collected, including 32 distinct incidents of claimed airstrikes from January 2025. Three key hotspots have emerged as focal points of the investigation – Mandalay Region, Rakhine State, and Shan State. This investigation has found that airstrikes have destroyed or severely damaged villages and critical infrastructure in areas where civilians, including children, were either regularly present or are claimed to have been present. This directly contradicts SAC claims that airstrikes target only insurgents. Isolated incidents of airstrikes suggest a broader or more indiscriminate use of airpower than a strictly proportional or necessary military strategy.

This report is based on the collection of already established Myanmar Witness data, in comparison to collected data around clashes/other incidents in January 2025. It cross-references satellite imagery, social media content and independent reports in its use of case studies to assess whether the Myanmar military’s claims of proportionality and necessity are accurate, while also highlighting the complexities inherent within claims of ‘isolated’ airstrikes.

Introduction

A prevailing narrative since the coup in 2021 is that the Myanmar military’s actions are proportionate, necessary and due to the incitement of other actors. Myanmar Witness’s earliest reports, such as those from Hlaing Thayar, reflect SAC narratives as blaming ‘protestors […] inciting the people’. The SAC also claim that these reactions are proportional to the situation. For example, in coverage of Operation Yan Naing Min in 2024, the SAC justified its airstrike campaign to ‘prevent the consolidation and establishment of EAOs and the People’s Defence Forces (PDF)’. Additionally, state-linked media Global New Light of Myanmar has a ‘Fact Check’ section on their website, presenting the pro-military perspective on alleged military interventions in Myanmar, frequently framing airstrikes as proportionate to “terrorist” threats and militarily “necessary”. 

Myanmar Witness has monitored five states and regions with low levels of active conflict in January 2025 to assess these claims of airstrikes. More pertinently, the investigation examined if these incidents were preceded by clashes with defence forces, testing the military’s narrative that airstrikes appear to be necessary.

However, documenting such incidents presents challenges in accurately capturing and analysing the trends with the established methodology. This underscores the necessity for case studies in this investigation, which provide a closer examination of isolated incidents and their broader implications. Moreover, these case studies highlight not only the complexity of airstrike patterns but also their human impact, particularly when the airstrikes appear indiscriminate or occur regularly in civilian areas. 

The report is structured into two main sections: Analysis, which is a general overview of the investigation findings, while the Case Studies examine two incidents in detail, demonstrating the breadth of complex situations analysed and the consequences of airstrikes on infrastructure and civilian lives. The report concludes that claims around the Myanmar Air Force using airstrikes against villages where civilians may be present remain ongoing. Furthermore, the nature of some airstrikes – seemingly isolated from incidents immediately preceding them – challenges the Myanmar military’s claims of necessary or proportional action against insurgents.