Daily Bangla Times: Myanmar's junta chief, flanked by tanks and missile launchers, vowed no let-up in a crackdown on opponents and said yesterday elections would be held, weeks after the military conceded it did not control enough territory to allow a vote.

Myanmar has been in turmoil since the military deposed Aung San Suu Kyi's civilian government more than two years ago after making unsubstantiated claims of electoral fraud.

The putsch sparked renewed fighting with ethnic rebels and birthed dozens of anti-junta "People's Defence Forces" (PDFs), with swaths of the country now ravaged by fighting and the economy in tatters.

The military will take "decisive action" against its opponents and ethnic rebels supporting them, Min Aung Hlaing told an audience of around 8,000 service members attending the annual Armed Forces Day parade in the capital Naypyidaw.

"The terror acts of NUG and its lackey so-called PDFs need to be tackled for good and all," he said, referring to the "National Unity Government", a body dominated by ousted lawmakers working to reverse the coup.

The junta would then hold "free and fair elections" upon the completion of the state of emergency, he said.

The military announced last month a six-month extension of a two-year state of emergency and postponed elections it had promised to hold by August because it did not control enough of the country for a vote to take place, reports AFP.

"Serenity and stability are vital" before any election could go ahead, Min Aung Hlaing told the parade.

Meanwhile, Britain yesterday sanctioned two individuals and a company in Myanmar for supplying equipment used by the country's military junta, reports Reuters.

Those sanctioned include a company and its director supplying Myanmar's air force with aviation fuel and a director at a second company that supplies restricted goods and technology, Britain's foreign office said.

The sanctions bar any financial dealings with UK entities and any travel to Britain.

Armed Forces Day commemorates the start of resistance to the Japanese occupation during World War II. It usually features a military parade attended by foreign officers and diplomats.

Workers made last-minute inspections of the parade ground early yesterday, the hulking statues of three of Myanmar's empire-building kings looming out of the dark.

Planes later trailed smoke in the yellow, red and green of the national flag as Russian-made Yak and Sukoi Su-30 jets made several flyovers.

Marching bands played bagpipes and brass, at times duelling with each other, and state media images showed women lining the streets to garland marching soldiers with flowers.

New junta chief Min Aung Hlaing was inspecting the parade two years ago when troops launched a countrywide crackdown on those protesting against the coup that had ousted Suu Kyi's government.

Around 160 protesters were killed in the violence, according to a local monitoring group, sparking widespread international condemnation.

Rights groups and opponents have since accused the military of torching villages and using air and artillery strikes as collective punishment for opponents.