Myanmar junta says senior officers held as rebels take over major base

(Reuters) - Myanmar's junta has lost communications with senior officers at a major military base near the Chinese border, in a rare admission of battlefield failure after rebels announced they had taken control of the key regional army headquarters.

The Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) rebel group, which said on July 25 it had taken over the base but kept fighting to gain full control, posted photographs of its troops at the military stronghold in Lashio town on Saturday.

Junta troops have been unable to contact an undisclosed number of officers at the besieged northeastern regional command, said military spokesman Zaw Min Tun on Monday, following weeks of intense fighting in and around the town.

"It has been found that senior officials were arrested," he said in an audio message posted on the Telegram messaging app, adding the junta was working to verify the situation.

Myanmar's ruling generals are under unprecedented pressure, three years after unseating a civilian government in a dawn coup, with an armed rebellion against military rule gaining ground amid a stalling economy.

A resistance movement was sparked by a violent crackdown on demonstrations following the February 2021 coup, as thousands of young protesters took up arms and combined forces with several established ethnic rebel groups to fight the military.

"MNDAA has gained complete victory after destroying remaining enemy troops and fully conquered the northeastern military headquarters," the group said in a statement on social media, accompanied by photographs of its troops.

The loss of Lashio - the first of 14 regional military commands to fall to rebels - marks a major defeat for the junta, which last year suffered a succession of stinging losses in northern Shan state near the Chinese border.

That rebel offensive, dubbed Operation 1027, came to a halt after Beijing intervened to help forge a fragile ceasefire, but that collapsed when fighting resumed in June in northern Shan state, where Lashio in located. China has urged dialogue and an end to hostilities.

"The rapid fall of the Myanmar army's Northeastern Command makes it fully clear to the ranks of the resistance and to neighboring countries just how weak the Myanmar military has become," said Jason Tower at United States Institute of Peace.

"For Min Aung Hlaing, the implications are existential," he said, referring to the embattled junta chief. "The fall of Lashio could prove to be the beginning of the end."

Three other anti-junta ethnic armies, which are fighting the Myanmar military along the Thai and Indian borders, on Sunday congratulated the MNDAA and another allied group for the successful offensive in Lashio.

"We will also continue to fight as allies until the military falls," said the statement from the Kachin, Karen and Chin groups.

(Reporting by Reuters Staff; Editing by Devjyot Ghoshal, Martin Petty)