The Kachin Independence Army (KIA) launched a landmine attack on a Burma Army military column from Light Infantry Division (LID) 99 on Christmas morning as it was returning to it base after capturing and setting fire to a KIA camp.
The LID 99 troops had captured the Ting Sa Kawng camp, which was controlled by the KIA’s Battalion 36, several days earlier. According to a KIA Brigade 6 officer, Kachin troops launched the attack on the Burma Army military column near the Mungbaw market in northern Shan State’s Muse District early Wednesday morning.
“Our troops are attacking the LID 99, which had captured the KIA Battalion 36 camp, near Nam HKawng Hka in Mungbaw. Government troops are shooting artillery to help their troops,” a KIA officer from Brigade 6 told KNG on condition of anonymity.
A witness said that at least one government soldier has been injured and admitted to the public hospital in Muse.
A military column of LID 99 troops attacked and captured the Ting Sa Kawng camp last Friday and then set fire to it. The KIA troops carried out the Christmas day attack in retaliation for the destruction of their camp.
The Kachin Independence Organization/KIA has yet to sign Burma’s Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement. The Northern Alliance—to which the KIA belongs along with the Arakan Army, Ta’ang National Liberation Army, and Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army—has been negotiating with the Burmese government and Burma Army for a bilateral ceasefire agreement.
With mediation from the Chinese government, representatives of the government and the Northern Alliance met in Kunming, in China’s Yunnan Province, on December 15.
Both the government and the Northern Alliance agreed to meet again in January 2020.
