Rebels killed in Myanmar army offensive
A further eight fighters injured after new clashes near Chinese border which follow rebel attack
Around a dozen ethnic rebels have been killed in a firefight with Myanmar troops and a further eight captured after renewed clashes in northern Myanmar near the Chinese border, state media said yesterday.
Myanmar's military has for several days carried out airstrikes and ground assaults on rebel positions in retaliation for an attack last week on a key army headquarters in the Kokang region.
That assault, on the main city of Laukkai, left dozens of soldiers dead in some of the heaviest recent clashes between government forces and rebel groups anywhere in a nation riddled with ethnic insurgencies.
On Saturday government troops clashed with Kokang "renegade groups" who had "infiltrated" Laukkai, state-run the Global New Light of Myanmar reported.
After fighting ended the military seized nearly 100 "small weapons ... and 13 bodies of the armed group," the report said, adding a further eight seriously wounded rebels were detained.
Authorities said unrest flared in Kokang, Shan State, on Monday shattering nearly six years of relative calm, in a serious blow to the quasi-civilian regime as it looks to forge a historic nationwide ceasefire to end the country's myriad ethnic minority conflicts.
Clear accounts of a week of conflict in the mountainous, remote Kokang area bordering China are hard to ascertain.