Myanmar democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi tours the Nobel Peace center in Oslo on June 16, 2012. Suu Kyi on June 16 pledged to keep up her struggle for democracy as she finally delivered her Nobel Peace Prize speech, 21 years after winning the award while under house arrest.    AFP PHOTO / POOL /Cathal McNaughton        (Photo credit should read Cathal McNaughton/AFP/GettyImages)
Who is Aung San Suu Kyi?
01:41 - Source: CNN
CNN  — 

A petrol bomb has been thrown at the lakeside villa of Myanmar State Councilor Aung San Suu Kyi in Yangon, the government spokesman said Thursday.

Spokesman Zaw Htay confirmed the reports but wouldn’t provide any further details, including whether the Nobel Laureate was there at the time of the attack.

Suu Kyi was held under house arrest by Myanmar’s former military regime at the home in Yangon, southern Myanmar, for 15 years. She was released in 2010.

Myanmar’s government is based in the country’s capital of Naypyidaw, 370 kilometers (230 miles) north of the city.

Zaw Htay posted a description of the firebombing suspect to his official Facebook page, a man aged about 40 years old with black hair.

Police officers patrol in front of Suu Kyi's residence in Yangon on February 1, after a petrol bomb was hurled at it.

Wednesday marks two years since Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party (NLD) took control of Myanmar’s parliament after winning the 2015 elections, giving the country its first democratic government in decades.

Myanmar’s de-facto leader has since been the target of international condemnation over the alleged ethnic cleansing by her government of the country’s Muslim minority Rohingya people.

At least 680,000 Rohingya refugees have fled across the border into Bangladesh since August 2017, bringing with them stories of indiscriminate killings and destruction of property in the country’s Western Rakhine State.

Suu Kyi’s government has strongly denied accusations it is deliberately targeting Rohingya civilians.