TNLA forces Myanmar army retreat in Kyaukme, northern Shan State

Junta forces attempting to repair a bridge destroyed by the resistance in northern Shan State retreated to the town of Kyaukme on Monday evening after a week of intense clashes with the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA). After withdrawing from the battle site along the 22-mile stretch of road between Kyaukme and the neighbouring town of Hsipaw, the military launched a lethal airstrike in retaliation. Locals said four people were killed near Kyaukme’s exit gate. Accompanied by a junta engineer and bringing heavy equipment, the convoy of 100 Myanmar army soldiers arrived in the area on the night of November 21 to begin repairs to the Kyin Thi bridge, which must be crossed to enter Hsipaw from the southwest. The structure was destroyed by resistance forces on November 12. The TNLA attacked the unit the morning after they arrived at the site, preventing them from fixing the bridge, which could be used to facilitate the arrival of further junta reinforcements to the area. The column initially retreated back to the exit gate outside of Kyaukme and set up a temporary camp there, according to the TNLA. On Monday at 5pm, the TNLA again ambushed the troops near the gate and exchanged gunfire for an hour. The soldiers withdrew to the base of Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) 502, located on the opposite side of Kyaukme. As the TNLA has made territorial advances through the region over the past month, Kyaukme’s junta police and civil servants have relocated to the LIB base in question, which was attacked by Ta’ang forces on November 14. A man from Kyaukme confirmed to Myanmar Now on Tuesday that the soldiers who had been sent to the Kyin Thi bridge had retreated twice, first to the toll gate, and then into the town, four miles away. “The TNLA fought them at the [exit] gate, so they had to run to Kyaukme on foot. The tanks and military vehicles that they brought when they went to Hsipaw are nowhere to be seen,” he said. The military’s aerial attack, launched at 7pm on Monday, left the exit gate where the camp had been located “in ruins,” he added. “The force of the airstrike engulfed three nearby trucks in flames, and a gas station near the gate.” While most civilians had already fled the area, the charred remains of four people were found close to the burning gas station, according to the Kyaukme branch of the Nam Khone Shan Charitable Association. The victims had not been identified at the time of reporting. Volunteers carry away the a charred body of a victim of a junta airstrike near Kyaukme (Nam Khone Shan Charitable Association - Kyaukme) TNLA spokesperson Lt-Col Tar Aik Kyaw said that “weapons were seized and bodies were discovered” in the area around the military’s camp. The ethnic armed organisation has prevented another 50-vehicle military convoy from advancing past the LIB 502 base in Kyaukme after it arrived on November 19. The soldiers are suspected reinforcements bound for the city of Lashio, nearly 50 miles northeast of Hsipaw, where the junta’s Northeastern Regional Military Command is located. Further battles in Kyaukme Fighting between the TNLA and the Myanmar army broke out in at least two other locations in Kyaukme Township on Monday, including near the villages of Nar Hkaw and Kawng Mu Lein that morning, leading to the Ta’ang forces’ seizure of military equipment. Alongside the ethnic Kokang Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), the TNLA captured a Kyaukme junta camp known as Pansan and locally referred to as Mansan, Lt-Col Tar Aik Kyaw said. “We were able to attack and occupy that camp,” he told Myanmar Now, adding that his group bombed the site with drones before launching a 30-minute ground assault. The MNDAA and TNLA, along with the Arakan Army, make up the Brotherhood Alliance of ethnic armed groups, which launched an offensive called Operation 1027 on October 27 in northern Shan State in an attempt to drive the junta out. Southwest of Kyaukme, the TNLA, accompanied by the Mandalay People’s Defence Force, have launched repeated attacks on military convoys coming from Mandalay to Shan State through Nawnghkio Township. The Brotherhood Alliance has established control over several northern Shan State towns, including Chin Shwe Haw, Kunlong, Pang Hseng and Mongko and captured more than 220 junta posts.

TNLA forces Myanmar army retreat in Kyaukme, northern Shan State

A junta unit that attempted to fix a bridge destroyed by the resistance withdraws to a nearby military base before launching an airstrike that caused four casualties

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