Kachin-led coalition drives junta out of northern Shan State town of Mabein

The Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and its allies seized the northern Shan State town of Mabein over the weekend, sources in the groups involved said. Mabein, the administrative centre of the township by the same name in Mongmit District, was captured on Sunday morning by the KIA, the All Burma Students’ Democratic Front (ABSDF) and the People’s Defence Force (PDF) after two days of clashes with the military. “Fighting began on Friday night and continued throughout the next day. [The junta] responded with a series of deadly airstrikes,” Arkar Phyo, a representative of ABSDF’s Column 2 told Myanmar Now. Houses were damaged in the aerial assaults, he added, noting that while there had not been reports of civilian casualties, information was still being collected from the ground. “Junta warplanes have bombed the town since Friday night and carried out multiple airstrikes during the battles,” he said. Mabein is around 27 miles north of the town of Mongmit, where the KIA, ABSDF, and PDF have been fighting the military for control of the location since January 18. Myanmar Now reported earlier that the resistance coalition had been said to have taken over Mongmit, but updated information indicates that residents remain trapped in their homes as the junta continues to fire artillery and carry out airstrikes in an attempt to drive the Kachin-led coalition out of the town. Video footage from January 19 showed a major market in Mongmit engulfed in flames after reportedly being hit in these attacks. The KIA and Kachin Region PDF also overran a police station, a hilltop army camp and a checkpoint in Kachin State’s Mansi Township, on the Chinese border, on Sunday morning. “We have seized a key junta police station in Man Wein Gyi village in Bhamo District,” KIA spokesperson Col Naw Bu said, adding that at least 30 junta soldiers from Light Infantry Battalion 424—including a deputy commander—surrendered during the operation. Man Wein Gyi is around five miles west of the town of Namkham in northern Shan State, which is under the control of another ethnic armed organisation fighting the junta in the region: the Ta’ang National Liberation Army. On January 15, the KIA launched an assault on a military base in Namphetka village tract in northern Shan State’s Kutkai Township, shooting down a fighter jet during the battles the next day as the aircraft was reportedly carrying out an attack on the area.

Kachin-led coalition drives junta out of northern Shan State town of Mabein

Joined by the ABSDF and the Kachin PDF, the KIA takes over the town in Mongmit District after two days of battles with the military

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