Hostilities resume between Myanmar military and MNDAA

Regime forces and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) exchanged fire on Monday near Lashio, northern Shan State, three months after China brokered a temporary truce between them. According to local sources, the clashes between the MNDAA—an ethnic armed organisation sometimes called the Kokang army—and junta forces broke out on Monday morning. The fighting started some 10 miles southeast of Lashio, between the villages of Long Mun and Ping Kaing at around 10:30am and lasted around 45 minutes, local villagers said. A resident of Kone Nyaung village—located adjacent to Lashio’s Ward 5—said that the battle began after soldiers in the junta’s Infantry Battalion 55, which is stationed in the same village, advanced into territory claimed by the MNDAA. “The junta soldiers were the ones who initiated the fighting,” the villager said. “The area of MNDAA territory that they infiltrated was quite far from their base. But we don’t know for certain who opened fire first.” The fighting is a breach of the ceasefire reached by Myanmar’s military regime and the Kokang armed group in China’s Yunnan Province on January 11. The Chinese government is likely to pressure the belligerents to suspend fighting again, and to place stronger pressure on the side they deem responsible for reigniting hostilities. According to the Kone Nyaung resident, starting around noon after the battle ended, the junta battalion also shelled the area where the fighting had taken place from their base in Kone Nyaung a total of three times. Casualty figures on either side could not be confirmed. A local source told Myanmar Now that there had been no further artillery strikes or fighting on March 27, which is observed as Armed Forces Day in Myanmar, but that there had also been no celebrations that day in Lashio to mark the occasion. The site of battle is also near the Meng Yaw region outside Lashio. Brigade 611—a force of volunteers from throughout Myanmar that the MNDAA helped to organise, arm, and train after the coup—is also active in the area. Lashio and northern Shan State after Operation 1027 Lashio, northern Shan State’s largest city, is the location of the Myanmar army’s northeastern regional military command headquarters. At least five of the army’s artillery, infantry, and light infantry battalions—as well as some junta-trained militia units—are also based in the city. However, substantial areas of the city and its surrounding villages are under the de facto control of anti-junta forces, including Brigade 611 and the Brotherhood Alliance, a tripartite grouping of ethnic armed organisations that includes the MNDAA as a member. The Brotherhood Alliance launched a sweeping, coordinated offensive—dubbed ‘Operation 1027’—against the military in northern Shan State in October 2023, which came to a temporary halt with the ceasefire brokered in January. During the hostilities, the military regime imposed martial law in Lashio and enforced a curfew. When 10 people detained for breaking the curfew died during interrogation, some Lashio residents fled the city. Before fighting broke out again this week, rumours had circulated on social media for days that regime forces planned to mount a counter-offensive against the MNDAA and its allies in northern Shan State. The regime reportedly redeployed a substantial number of officers and troops to the frontlines in Lashio after they surrendered to the Brotherhood Alliance in other northern Shan State cities—namely Kutkai and Laukkai—during Operation 1027. Myanmar Now tried to reach MNDAA spokesperson Li Kyar Win through online channels for comment on the recent clashes, but did not receive a response. The military council has not issued any public statement regarding battles in northern Shan State. MNDAA troops advancing into Hsenwi from Kutkai on January 18, 2024 (Photo: Myat Pan/Myanmar Now) SSPP and MNDAA clash near Hsenwi Fighting also reportedly occurred elsewhere in northern Shan State on Monday between the MNDAA and one of its purported allies—the Shan State Army-North (SSPP/SSA), the armed wing of the Shan State Progressive Party (SSPP). The fighting began northeast of Hsenwi—a town located some 20 miles northeast of Lashio, also called Hseni or Theinni—at around 2pm, according to a statement given to Myanmar Now by Sai Su, a deputy secretary general of the SSPP. MNDAA fighters launched a drone attack that day, according to the SSPP statement, and surrounded a column of SSPP fighters in the same area the following day. Although Shan-language Facebook pages circulated claims that the clashes between the SSPP and MNDAA resulted in the deaths of two SSA North members, Myanmar Now was unable to confirm the number of casualties on either side independently. While the SSPP operates an administrative apparatus in Hsenwi, it does not have de facto control of the town. During Operation 1027, MNDAA forces took control of Hsenwi with support from the People’s Liberation Army—a communist armed organisation. The MNDAA later incorporated Hsenwi into “Special Region 1”, an administrative area delineated to replace the Kokang Self-Administered Zone established in Myanmar’s military-drafted 2008 constitution. Despite the recent friction between the MNDAA and SSPP, both are members of the Federal Political Negotiation and Consultative Committee, which was established in 2017 to facilitate negotiations and cooperative relations between several large ethnic armed organisations active in northern Myanmar.

Hostilities resume between Myanmar military and MNDAA

After remaining in effect for more than two months in northern Shan State, a Chinese government-mediated ceasefire agreement between the junta forces and Kokang ethnic armed group has been broken

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