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BANGKOK (AFP) – Myanmar junta troops launched a helicopter raid on anti-coup fighters in a restive region, locals and a spokesman said Monday, as the military struggles to break resistance to its rule.

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Anti-junta militias have sprung up across Myanmar to fight back after the February coup and a crackdown on dissent that a local monitoring group says has killed more than 1,300 people.

These “people’s defence forces” (PDFs) have surprised the army with their effectiveness, analysts have said, dragging the junta into a bloody stalemate.

On Friday, junta troops launched a raid on a PDF meeting in the country’s central Sagaing region using helicopters and jet fighters, locals said. Two helicopters landed and deployed troops, said a Hnan Khar village resident who did not want to be named, adding that a jet had strafed a building.

Another local told AFP the military used five helicopters in the attack and that troops had fired on the village of around 6,000 people from the air.

Troops killed two PDF leaders and seven civilians after they disembarked, one of them added. AFP was unable to verify the reports. Junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun confirmed the military had used helicopters in the raid, without saying how they were used.

He said he had no casualty figures. The military typically calls on helicopters and airborne assaults when ground troops have struggled, analysts have said.