Myanmar armed group captures another town on highway to China
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The Ta’ang National Liberation Army captured the last remaining military base in the town of Hsipaw on Oct 13 after weeks of fighting.
PHOTO: AFP
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YANGON – Fighters from a Myanmar ethnic armed group have seized another town along a strategic highway to China, the group and a resident said, in the latest setback for the embattled junta.
Northern Shan state has been rocked with fighting since the summer, when an alliance of ethnic armed groups renewed an offensive against the military along the highway to China’s Yunnan province.
The Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) captured the last remaining military base in the town of Hsipaw on Oct 13 after weeks of fighting, a spokeswoman for the group told AFP on Oct 14.
“We took all army bases and there is no more Myanmar army in the town,” Ms Lway Yay Oo said.
Hsipaw is normally home to around 20,000 people and sits on a highway from Myanmar’s second city, Mandalay, to the China border, along which hundreds of millions of dollars of trade travels annually.
A Hsipaw resident who did not want to be named told AFP on Oct 15 that TNLA fighters had taken control of the town on Oct 13.
“There is no more fighting in the town, but we are afraid of (military) air strikes as we do not know when they will come,” he said.
Locals were currently allowed to enter and leave the town but many were yet to return, he said.
The junta has not commented on the fighting in Hsipaw, and AFP was unable to confirm reports from the area, where internet access has been cut.
The TNLA’s Ms Lway Yay Oo said that 100 soldiers from the military had been “disarmed” since the TNLA launched its attack in August, without specifying what had happened to them.
She did not give details on TNLA or military casualties.
The TNLA is a member of the so-called “Three Brotherhood Alliance”, which includes the Arakan Army (AA) and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA).
In October 2023, the alliance launched an offensive across northern Shan state, seizing swathes of territory
A Beijing-brokered ceasefire halted clashes in January, only for the alliance to resume attacks in June.
In August, the MNDAA seized the town of Lashio,
Lashio is the largest urban centre to fall to any of Myanmar’s myriad ethnic minority armed groups since the military first seized power in 1962. AFP
