MYANMAR – Myanmar’s army chief and coup leader Senior General Min Aung Hlaing has acknowledged his troops are under pressure after anti-coup fighters claimed to have taken control of a key military base in the northeastern town of Lashio.

The Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), part of a powerful alliance of ethnic armed groups fighting to remove the military from power, said it had overrun the headquarters of the army’s Northeastern Command at the weekend. Min Aung Hlaing did not directly address the situation in Lashio but indicated that in northern Shan State, “security forces withdrew their positions” for security reasons and because they were concerned about the safety of people living there.

The army chief, whose comments were published in full in Tuesday’s official Global New Light of Myanmar, accused anti-coup forces of abuses, attacking civilians and military hospitals and working with “stooges at home and abroad” to demoralise the population. Their weaponry, including drones, was also becoming more sophisticated, he said. The military seized power in February 2021 from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy party. The coup led to mass protests that evolved into an armed rebellion when the military responded with force.

Nearly 5,500 civilians have been killed in the fighting while some 20,715 are in jail for criticising the military, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which has been tracking the situation. Rights groups have also said the military should be investigated for potential war crimes over attacks on civilians.

Lashio lies about 110km (70 miles) south of the Chinese border and has been an MNDAA target since it launched the second phase of Operation 1027 in early July. It took the border city of Laukkai, notorious as a hub for criminality and the capital of the Mandarin-speaking Kokang region, in January. (Al Jazeera)…[+]