Locals are concerned about what appear to be strained relations between the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) in northern Shan State’s Kutkai Township, where they both claim territory.
A KIA unit of some 50 troops reportedly set up new camps in urban wards of Kutkai on February 4, one day ahead of the Kachin Revolution Day, which they were preparing to commemorate. The Kachin soldiers, as well as some ethnic Kachin locals from the area, raised the flags of the KIA at the camps and along the Union highway for the occasion.
At around 10am on February 5, TNLA soldiers reportedly came and took the flags down.
A Kutkai-based officer in the ethnic Ta’ang armed organisation confirmed that their troops removed the flags, claiming that this was because the KIA held their Revolution Day celebrations without informing the. . .
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