The Kachin Independence Army (KIA) seized a strategic junta base controlling the main entrance route to the jade mining hub of Hpakant town in Hpakant Township, Kachin State on Thursday after two days of attacks, according to the ethnic rebel army.
The base is located in Namtyar Village on the Hpakant-Kamaing Road. Around 200 troops from the regime’s military and the Shanni Nationalities Army (SNA) were stationed there.
Colonel Naw Bu, the spokesman for the KIA, told The Irrawaddy on Thursday that the group’s troops took complete control of the junta base at around 7 a.m.
The junta base set up a checkpoint in Namtyar Village, from which it controlled traffic on the Hpakant-Kamaing route leading to Hpakant town.
“It was also the junta’s main entrance gate for Hpakant. It earned a lot by collecting money from civilians and vehicles using the route,” the KIA spokesman said.
The junta used fighter jets in a failed attempt to defend the base. Some civilian houses in Namtyar Village burned down after being struck during the airstrikes. KIA troops managed to arrest some regime forces while seizing the base.
The base played an important role in the regime’s security operation for the jade town, the KIA’s spokesman said.
On Tuesday, KIA troops seized a junta police station in Sezin Village near Hpakant, with over 20 junta police officers surrendering to the ethnic army. However, clashes continued in the village after KIA troops attacked a junta base where regime soldiers and SNA troops were jointly stationed, according to local Kachin media.
The ethnic rebel army recently took complete control of Lwegel (Loije) town on the border with China after seizing several junta bases on the Momauk-Lwegel Road. Lwegel is one of Myanmar’s five border towns with China, with an estimated US$119 million in trade passing through the town in the 2023-24 fiscal year.
KIA troops also seized over 5 billion kyats ($2.3 million) and gold bars from the junta’s Infantry Battalion 1142 headquarters in Lwegel after the base’s 63 troops and other personnel abandoned the battalion HQ and fled to China on Monday.
The KIA and its allies have seized 10 battalion headquarters and more than 60 outposts in Kachin State since launching offensives along the Bhamo-Myitkyina Road on March 7.
