General
Myanmar Rebels Claim Regional Military Base in Major Victory
The seizure of the military’s northeastern command post gives the resistance control of a city and airport on a crucial trade corridor to China.
A rebel army in Myanmar announced this weekend that it had overrun a regional military base near the border with China in what is likely to be the most significant victory yet for a patchwork of resistance groups that have challenged the country’s junta.
On Monday, Myanmar’s military rulers signaled that the insurgents had, in fact, made a major advance, saying the junta had lost contact with the base, the northeastern command in the city of Lashio in Shan State.
The junta has been on the defensive for months as a broad alliance of rebel militias and pro-democracy groups has made inroads across large swaths of the country. Suffering repeated losses of territory and troops, the junta in recent months has enforced a mandatory draft.
But the fall of a regional military headquarters — one of 14 in Myanmar and home to thousands of government soldiers — would be a major defeat for the junta, which has been on a war footing for decades. It would also give the rebels control of Lashio, a strategic city, and its airport.
The victory, after weeks of fighting, was claimed by the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army. On Saturday, the group’s fighters, who are from the Kokang ethnic Chinese minority, posted photos of themselves posing at the gates of the base. The group also claimed that it had in its custody three senior officers, all generals from the base.
“Senior officers closely supervised and participated in the fighting until 6:30 p.m. on Aug. 3, but contact was lost thereafter,” Zaw Min Tun, the military spokesman, said in an announcement on Monday. “Unconfirmed reports indicate that some senior officers have been captured.”
