KIA Captures Hpakant Military Camp
By Network Media Group
Tuesday, November 16, 2021
The Kachin Independence Army (KIA) seized a Burma Army camp in Hpakant Township on 14 November, while Kachin soldiers simultaneously attacked two other camps in the area.
”Our troops attacked the Nam Jam military camp at 7am and captured it around 8am,” Col Naw Bu, spokesperson for the political wing of the KIA, the Kachin Independence Organisation, told NMG. He said the regime retaliated with an air strike.
“Tensions are high in the region and more fighting can happen at any time,” Naw Bu said. Currently, soldiers from KIA Battalion 6 are the only ones fighting the military in Kachin State.
The situation is different in Mongkoe in northern Shan State, where clashes can be expected at any time.
Since the 1 February coup, conflict has increased across the country, including with the KIA, while more than 200,000 civilians have been displaced by the military’s offensives and fighting with ethnic armed groups and newly formed civilian resistance groups.
The Burma Army has deliberately shelled villages, shooting their rifles at civilians and forcing them to serve as human shields.
(New Information from Kachin states that KIA had occupied one more strategic post in Hpakant and fighting is still going on at another post.)
