A Myanmar insurgent group has captured senior army officers after seizing their headquarters, a military spokesperson announced on Monday, in a stunning setback for the embattled junta that seized power in a 2021 coup.
The Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, or MNDAA, insurgent group said it captured the junta’s Northeast Regional Military Headquarters in the Shan state town of Lashio last week. It is the first such headquarters that rebels fighting to end military rule have captured.
“We had communication with the senior officers until 6:30 in the evening on Aug. 3, but we’ve been out of contact until now,” junta spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun said in a statement.
“According to unconfirmed reports, some senior officers have been arrested by terrorist insurgents,” he said.
The junta spokesperson did not say how many officers had been captured or give any names or ranks but media reported that the commander of the Northeast Regional Military Headquarters, Maj. Gen. Soe Tint, Regional Chief of Staff Brigadier General Thant Htin Soe and chief of the Kyaukme-based Operation and Command Headquarters, Brigadier General Myo Min Htwe were in MNDAA custody.
Radio Free Asia tried to contact MNDAA spokesperson Li Kyar Win to confirm the reports but he did not respond.
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Myanmar has been in turmoil since the military overthrew an elected government led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi in early 2021.
Ethnic minority insurgents battling the military for decades have been joined by pro-democracy activists, and they’ve made significant gains in several parts of the country, particularly since large last year when several groups launched offensives.
On Saturday evening, the MNDAA, a member of a three-party rebel alliance that has made big gains against the military, announced it had captured Lashio’s Northeast Regional Military Headquarters after a month of fighting.
Myanmar has 14 such regional military command headquarters.
The MNDAA did not mention the capture of senior officers but said more than 470 wounded junta soldiers and their family members had been evacuated from the headquarters’ hospital on Thursday.
Neither side has announced casualty figures but at least nine civilians have been killed in the fighting and thousands of Lashio residents have fled from the battered city.
The junta-backed Myanmar Alinn newspaper said on Monday that MNDAA fighters had attacked the military hospital, killing civilian patients, staff and relatives of junta troops.
The junta commander-in-chief of the Defense Service Office also announced on Monday that several women serving in the junta’s police force had been killed in the battle, as well as many of their family members.
Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.
