BANGKOK (AP) — Myanmar ‘s military has recaptured a strategic gateway town from rebel forces after nearly a year, state-media reported Thursday, marking a rare turnaround in the country’s northeast, where an alliance of ethnic militias seized a large swath of territory in an offensive that began in late 2023.
Nawnghkio, which sits on a major highway trading route linking central Myanmar to China, had been under the control of the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, or TNLA, a group in the Three Brotherhood Alliance, since July last year.
Its recapture by the army comes after a long period where the military government had been seen as being on the defensive against an array of rebel forces in the civil war that is being fought over much of the country.
Nawnghkio, which also stands on the highway leading to the major military garrison town of Pyin Oo Lwin, was completely captured by the army at noon on Wednesday after nearly 11 months of operations to retake the town, according to a state-run Myanma Alinn newspaper report on Thursday.
After more than 500 armed engagements, including 20 major clashes, the bodies of 171 members of the TNLA and its allies were recovered and their ammunition supplies were captured, the report said, adding that the military was working to restore the town’s administrative mechanisms, remove land mines and ensure the safe return of residents who had fled to avoid fighting.
The newspaper also published photos of the soldiers who had recaptured the town in front of the government offices, hospitals, and markets.
The Ta’ang National Liberation Army did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Restrictions on reporting make independent confirmation of the town’s recapture virtually impossible, though the army’s claim has not been challenged.
However, in a statement posted Wednesday on the Telegram messaging app, the TNLA said it had moved the group’s civil administration and service offices in Nawnghkio to safe locations as the military’s intensive offensive operations in the past few months made it difficult to carry out work.
The groups in the Three Brotherhood Alliance, which also include the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army and the Arakan Army, have been fighting for decades for greater autonomy from Myanmar’s central government and are loosely allied with the People’s Defense Force, the pro-democracy resistance that emerged to fight military rule after the army seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021.
Since October 2023, the alliance members captured and controlled significant swaths of territory in in northeastern Myanmar near the Chinese border and in western Myanmar. Their victories were seen as forcing the army to go on the defensive over most of the country, while boosting the morale and strategic position of resistance forces.
The recapture of Nawnghkio comes more than two months after the TNLA rejected the military’s demands to withdraw from five towns controlled by the group, including Nawnghkio, during talks brokered by China in the Chinese city of Kunming in late April.
China tries to maintain good relations with both the military government and the groups making up the Three Brotherhood Alliance, but fears that the aggressive posture of the rebel groups destabilizes Myanmar, which is a key Southeast Asian ally of Beijing with large strategic Chinese investments in minerals, energy and infrastructure.
Nawnghkio’s recapture also comes just more than a week after the military claimed to take back the strategic town of Mobye in southern Shan state, which had been seized since late 2023 by another alliance of ethnic armed organizations in the eastern state of Kayah, also known as Karenni.
Myanmar has been in turmoil since the army’s 2021 takeover, which led to nationwide peaceful protests that escalated into armed resistance and what now amounts to civil war.
Nay Phone Latt, a spokesperson for the opposition’s National Unity Government, which coordinates resistance to army rule, told The Associated Press last Friday that the military regime has been trying to retake areas controlled by the resistance ahead of a general election planned for later this year. The poll is widely seen as an attempt to normalize the military’s seizure of power through the ballot box and to deliver a result that ensures the generals retain control.
