Myanmar junta says senior officers held as rebels take over major base

NAYPYIDAW — Myanmar's junta has lost communications with senior officers at a major military base near the Chinese border, it said in a rare admission of battlefield failure after rebels announced they have taken control of the key regional army headquarters.

The Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) rebel group, which said on July 25 it took over the base but kept fighting to gain full control, posted photographs of its troops at the military stronghold in Lashio town on Aug 3.

Junta troops have been unable to contact an undisclosed number of officers at the besieged north-eastern regional command, said military spokesman Zaw Min Tun on Aug 5, following weeks of intense fighting in and around the town.

"It has been found that senior officials were arrested," he said in an audio message posted on the Telegram messaging app, adding the junta was working to verify the situation.

Myanmar's ruling generals are under unprecedented pressure, three years after unseating a civilian government in a dawn coup, with an armed rebellion against military rule gaining ground amid a stalling economy.

A resistance movement was sparked by a violent crackdown on demonstrations following the February 2021 coup, as thousands of young protesters took up arms and combined forces with several established ethnic rebel groups to fight the military.

"MNDAA has gained complete victory after destroying remaining enemy troops and fully conquered the north-eastern military headquarters," the group said in a statement on social media, accompanied by photographs of its troops.

The loss of Lashio — the first of 14 regional military commands to fall to rebels — marks a major defeat for the junta, which suffered in 2023 a succession of stinging losses in northern Shan state near the Chinese border.

That rebel offencive, dubbed Operation 1027, came to a halt after Beijing intervened to help forge a fragile ceasefire, but that collapsed when fighting resumed in June in the northern Shan state, where Lashio is located. China has urged dialogue and an end to hostilities.

"The rapid fall of the Myanmar army's North-eastern Command makes it fully clear to the ranks of the resistance and to neighbouring countries just how weak the Myanmar military has become," said Jason Tower, of the United States Institute of Peace.

"For Min Aung Hlaing, the implications are existential," he said, referring to the embattled junta chief. "The fall of Lashio could prove to be the beginning of the end."

Three other anti-junta ethnic armies, which are fighting the Myanmar military along the Thai and Indian borders, on Aug 4 congratulated the MNDAA and another allied group for the successful offencive in Lashio.

"We will also continue to fight as allies until the military falls," said the statement from the Kachin, Karen and Chin groups.

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