MYANMAR’S North East Command has fallen to rebels in the military’s biggest setback in the civil war to date, according to a major insurgent group.

The Tatmadaw (Burmese military) admitted it had lost contact with the strategically important army headquarters in the town of Lashio, near the Chinese border.

Morgan Michaels, an analyst with Myanmar Conflict Map, called it “the most humiliating defeat of the war” and said it would make it extremely hard for the army to claw back control in the north-east.

The HQ fell to the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), part of the Three Brotherhood Alliance umbrella group of rebel militias.

The MNDAA is an offshoot of the Communist Party of Burma, which itself has a People’s Liberation Army active in another of the rebel alliances, the People’s Defence Force.

Long-running insurgencies in Myanmar exploded into co-ordinated armed revolts following the military coup of 2021.