BANGKOK: The main organization coordinating resistance to Myanmar’s military government says its forces have arrested 10 members of a local resistance group suspected in the killing of a Catholic village priest last week in the country’s northwest.

Father Donald Martin Ye Naing Win, 44, is believed to be the first Catholic priest targeted for killing in the civil war that erupted after the army seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi four years ago. He served in a village church in Shwebo township in Sagaing region, a stronghold of the armed resistance.

The Home Affairs and Immigration Ministry of the shadow National Unity Government, the leading opposition organization, said in a statement Monday that the suspects were captured by the Shwebo branch of its armed People’s Defense Force and other local resistance groups on Friday, the day of the killing.

The statement said an initial investigation found the suspects were members of a local defense force, and the shadow government’s Defense Ministry will investigate further. It said nothing about a possible motive for the attack.

The statement said the National Unity Government “strongly condemns any acts of targeting civilians, including religious leaders.”

In the battle for democracy against army rule, resistance fighters from the Buddhist Burman ethnic majority have joined forces with long-oppressed ethnic minorities, some with substantial Christian populations. Buddhists make up almost 90% of Myanmar’s population, and Christians make up about 6%.

Human rights groups charge that security forces indiscriminately and disproportionately target civilians, and churches and other houses of worship including Buddhist temples have been targets of attacks including aerial bombings.

Some Christian clergy have been attacked, but the reasons often are unclear. In March last year, Baptist pastor Nammye Hkun Jaw Li was shot dead by armed men in the northern state of Kachin. One month later, Paul Hkwi Shane Aung, a parish priest in Kachin’s Mohnyin township, was shot and seriously wounded by two gunmen.

There are no previous publicized cases of resistance groups attacking Christian clergy.

Cardinal Charles Bo, head of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Myanmar, said in a statement Sunday that the group had received the news of the priest’s killing on Friday.

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