Myanmar's military regime acknowledged Monday it had lost communications with the commanders of a strategically important army headquarters in the northeast, adding credence to a militia group's claims it had captured the base.
The fall of the army's Northeast Command in Lashio city would be the biggest in a series of setbacks for Myanmar’s military government this year, as an offensive by an alliance of powerful militias of ethnic minority groups makes broad gains in the civil war.
“The regime’s loss of the Northeast Command is the most humiliating defeat of the war,” said Morgan Michaels, a Singapore-based analyst with the International Institute of Strategic Studies who runs its Myanmar Conflict Map project. “Without Lashio, it will be extremely difficult for the regime to hold onto its final outposts in the theater.”
Those include the key Muse border crossing with China, as well as the strategic crossroads at Kyaukme, and it opens the way for attacks on Pyin Oo Lwin and Myanmar's second-largest city, Mandalay, Michaels said.
In a video broadcast Monday night on state television, the head of the ruling military council. Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, gave a vague account of the base’s fall, saying some security forces in northern Shan State left their outposts because keeping people safe was their priority.
In his 25-minute address, he accused the ethnic resistance forces and “traitor maggots” inside and outside Myanmar of working together and circulating propaganda to demoralize people.
He alleged that warlordism is growing among leaders of the insurgent groups, and that people are likely to face illegal and unjust killings and an economy involving drug trafficking and gambling. The army will continue to carry out security measures to restore stability, he said.
The loss of Lashio raises questions about whether Myanmar's ruling military council could be forced to give up attempts to hold contested territory in order to consolidate a defense of the central heartland.
It could also contribute to growing discontent with Min Aung Hlaing, who seized power after leading the overthrow of the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021.
“It seems increasingly unlikely that the army could survive with Min Aung Hlaing at the helm," Michaels said.
Lashio, about 110 kilometers (70 miles) south of the Chinese border, has been the target of an offensive by the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army since early July.
The MNDAA is a military force of the Kokang minority, who are ethnic Chinese. It is part of the Three Brotherhood Alliance, which in October launched a surprise offensive that succeeded in seizing large tracts of territory along the northern border with China.
The Chinese Embassy in Myanmar on Tuesday urged its citizens in Lashio and other parts of Shan state to strengthen their security precautions, and stay away from conflict zones or return to China.
Beijing helped broker a cease-fire in January, but that fell apart in June when the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, another member of the Three Brotherhood Alliance made up of Ta'ang ethnic minority members, launched new attacks, followed by the MNDAA.
The alliance’s third member, the Arakan Army, has never stopped fighting in its home Rakhine State in western Myanmar.
The groups in the alliance have been fighting for decades for greater autonomy from Myanmar’s central government. They are loosely allied with People’s Defense Forces, pro-democracy resistance groups that have emerged to fight military rule.
The MNDAA initially claimed the capture of the Northeast Command and Lashio on July 25, but it turned out the announcement was premature as the army continued to fight.
The MNDAA in a statement on Facebook on Saturday said the group had finally completely captured the Northeast Command headquarters and defeated the remaining army units in Lashio.
The claims could not be verified independently, with access to the internet and mobile phone services in the area mostly cut off.
A member of Lashio’s Freedom Youth Volunteers-FYV, reached while outside the city, told The Associated Press on Monday that other members of his aid group had reported army personnel remained in control of some areas of the Northeast Command headquarters, though most had been taken by the MNDAA.
He spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisals from both sides.
There were reports of gunfire in the city on Sunday, but images of captured soldiers and equipment were circulating widely on social media, suggesting the MNDAA had taken the base. The MNDAA released a photo of its fighters posing in front of a sign outside the Northeast Command.
“The regime has clearly suffered an enormous loss and no longer has any meaningful control of the city, even if it retains a toehold for now,” Michaels said.
Early Monday, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, the spokesperson of Myanmar’s ruling military council, said in an audio statement on state-run MRTV television that it had lost contact with commanders of the Northeast Command headquarters Saturday night and had unconfirmed reports that some have been arrested by the MNDAA.
He did not address MNDAA's claim of capturing the base.