By AFP
The Three Brotherhood Alliance said yesterday it had agreed a four-day ceasefire with the junta in northern Shan State following clashes in which its fighters seized territory from the military along a strategic highway to China.
The area has been rocked by fighting since late last month, when the Brotherhood renewed an offensive against junta troops along the road to China’s Yunnan province.
The clashes shredded a previous Beijing-brokered truce that in January halted an earlier push by the Brotherhood – made up of the Arakan Army, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army.
“We… showed cooperation with China by agreeing a four-day ceasefire in northern Shan” from 14-18 July, Major-General Tar Bhone Kyaw of the TNLA told Agence France-Presse.
The new agreement did not cover the neighbouring Mandalay Region, where members of the alliance and other opponents of the military have been battling junta troops in recent weeks, Bhone Kyaw said.
AFP was unable to reach a junta spokesman for comment.
China is a major ally and arms supplier to the junta, but analysts say it also maintains ties with armed ethnic groups in Myanmar that hold territory near its border.
Beijing’s top leaders are gathering on Monday for the Communist Party’s secretive Third Plenum – a key political meeting.
Towns captured
In the latest fighting, the TNLA claimed to have captured two towns along the highway that runs from Myanmar’s second city Mandalay to China’s Yunnan province.
One of the towns, Nawnghkio, is around 50 kilometres down the highway from the former British hill station of Pyin Oo Lwin trown, home to the military’s elite officer training academy.
Clashes have also rocked the town of Lashio, home to the military’s North Eastern Command.
Dozens of civilians have been killed or wounded in the recent fighting, according to the junta and local rescue groups.
Neither the junta nor the Brotherhood have released figures on their own casualties.
Myanmar’s borderlands are home to myriad ethnic armed groups who have battled the military since independence from Britain in 1948 for autonomy and control of lucrative resources.
Some have given shelter and training to newer People’s Defence Forces that have sprung up to battle the military after it ousted Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s government in February 2021.
In recent days, PDF fighters have battled junta forces in Madaya Township, around an hour north of Mandalay city.
Amid the renewed fighting earlier this month, junta deputy Vice-Senior General Soe Win Soe Win travelled to China to discuss security cooperation along the border.