BANGKOK– Ethnic armed groups claimed Thursday to have captured two strategically important cities in northeastern Myanmar: Lashio, home to the main regional military headquarters, and Mogok, the center of the country’s lucrative business. gem mining industry.
His fall would be the biggest in a series of setbacks suffered by Myanmar’s military government this year, and raises questions about whether the ruling military council could be forced to give up trying to control the disputed territory to consolidate a defense of the central heartland.
The ruling military council denied that its Lashio headquarters had been taken, and two city residents contacted by phone said fighting there was continuing. Telephone contact with Mogok was cut, but a video posted on social media appeared to show residents applauding the arrival of ethnic guerrillas.
Lashio, the largest city in the northern part of Shan state, and Mogok, the ruby mining center in the upper Mandalay region, have been targets of attacks. an offensive by the MNDAA, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, and the TNLA, the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, since late June.
The MNDAA is a military force of the ethnic Chinese Kokang minority, and the TNLA represents the Ta’ang or Palaung ethnic minority. The groups have been fighting for greater autonomy from Myanmar’s central government for decades and are loosely allied with the People’s Defense Force, or PDF, the pro-democracy resistance that emerged to fight the military government after the army. overthrew the elected government by Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021.
The two armed groups are part of the Alliance of the Three Brotherhoods, which last October launched a surprise offensive that managed to seize large swaths of territory along the northern border with China. The current round of fighting marked the end of a January China-brokered ceasefire which nominally stopped fighting between the alliance and the army for almost six months.
Beijing maintains close relations with both groups, as well as with the military government, and above all seeks stability in Myanmar, which is a strategic ally.
The MNDAA said in a statement posted Thursday on its Facebook page that the group had completely captured the army’s Northeast Command headquarters in Lashio by 4 a.m. that morning, after 23 days of fighting.
The MNDAA had captured a regional military headquarters in Laukkaing, a key city on the Chinese border, during the previous Three Brotherhood Alliance offensive, but the Lashio headquarters is more important.
The MNDAA statement said its supposed capture of Lashio, about 110 kilometers (70 miles) south of the Chinese border, was a “historic victory.”
However, Major General Zaw Min Tun, spokesman for the ruling military council, said in a message to reporters on Thursday that claims about the capture of the military command headquarters were false.
He said insurgents had infiltrated some neighborhoods on the city’s outskirts and that the army was fighting to dislodge them.
“The loss of Lashio would be a major strategic blow to the regime,” said Morgan Michaels, a Singapore-based analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies who heads its Myanmar conflict map project, he said in an email. “The city hosts the Northeast Command and is the junta’s last major line of defense in northern Shan State. There could be about 5,000 regime defenders in the city, so depending on what happens to them – whether they withdraw, surrender or are destroyed – that could also have an impact on the army’s overall force posture.”
The TNLA, in a statement posted on the Telegram messaging platform, said it had completely captured Mogok after seizing all military posts and government offices there in a month of fighting. Mogok, which is at the center of Myanmar’s lucrative gem mining industry, is about 110 kilometers (70 miles) northeast of Mandalay, the country’s second-largest city.
He said he captured about 30 army soldiers and more than 200 weapons.
Photos and videos widely circulating on social media were said to show members of the TNLA and their allies in the People’s Defense Forces being warmly received by city residents.
However, claims about Mogok’s capture could not be independently verified, as access to Internet and mobile phone services in the city area was virtually cut off.
“The capture of Mogok would be a significant victory for the TNLA and an embarrassing loss for the junta,” said analyst Michaels. “The Mogok Valley is the largest source of rubies in the world and offers enormous income generating opportunities for the TNLA.”
This story originally appeared on ABCNews.go.com read the full story
