YANGON, Myanmar — Myanmar says at least 30 people were killed in fighting triggered by a pre-dawn attack by an ethnic rebel group in the country's northeast bordering China.

The office of the country's leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, blamed the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army for the Monday morning attack, which it said killed five civilians and five police officers. It said the bodies of 20 other people were found after the fighting in the town of Laukkai in northern Shan state. It was not clear if the 20 were among the estimated 50 attackers. </s> Hanoi (VNA) – Clashes on March 6 in Laukkai town in Myanmar’s eastern Shan state, left more than 30 dead.

 

 The Myanmar State Counsellor Office said the incidents occurred after insurgent gunmen in police uniform attacked police and military stations.

 

 Another group of gunmen attacked parts of Laukkai town.

 

 The office accused the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) of staging the attacks.

 

 Initial information showed at least five citizens and five local policemen dead. More than 20 gunmen were killed.

 

 A military source said the conflict was continuing and local people have been fleeing.

 

 Clashes in Shan state have killed more than 160 people since late 2016.-VNA </s> YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Myanmar says at least 30 people were killed in fighting triggered by a pre-dawn attack by an ethnic rebel group in the country’s northeast bordering China.

The office of the country’s leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, blamed the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army for the Monday morning attack, which it said killed five civilians and five police officers. It said the bodies of 20 other people were found after the fighting in the town of Laukkai in northern Shan state. It was not clear if the 20 were among the estimated 50 attackers.

Fierce fighting between the government and the rebel group, which represents the Kokang, an ethnic Chinese minority, last occurred in 2015, sending tens of thousands of civilians fleeing across the border to China. </s> At least 12 people have died in a series of coordinated attacks by insurgents on police posts and an army base in Myanmar.

At least five police and seven Rohingya Muslim insurgents have been killed in Myanmar's Rakhine state, the government says, after militants staged coordinated attacks on 24 police posts and tried breaking into an army base.

The overnight attacks mark a dramatic escalation in a conflict simmering in Rakhine since last October, when similar attacks that killed nine police prompted a massive military counter-offensive beset by allegations of civilian killings, rape and arson.

The military operation then resulted in some 87,000 Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh and the United Nations accused Myanmar's security forces of likely committing crimes against humanity. </s> YANGON: At least 30 people were killed on Monday (Mar 6) in a day of intense fighting in a town on Myanmar's border with China, authorities said, after rebels dressed in police uniforms launched a surprise raid.

Artillery and small arms fire continued throughout the day in Laukkai, a main town in the Kokang region of the northeastern state of Shan.

The clashes are some of the worst to break out in the Chinese-speaking Kokang region since fighting in 2015 left scores dead and forced tens of thousands to flee across the border into China.

Myanmar is already torn by various ethnic insurgencies. But the Kokang conflict has raised tensions with its giant neighbour.

Aung San Suu Kyi's government is desperate to end the decades-long borderland conflicts, but intensifying fighting threatens peace efforts.

Rebels from the Myanmar Nationalities Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) launched an attack early Monday against police and military posts, according to Suu Kyi's office.

A separate group of fighters later attacked locations in the main town.

"According to initial information, many innocent civilians including a primary school teacher ... were killed because of attacks by the MNDAA armed group," the State Counsellor's Office said in a statement, adding some attackers wore local police uniforms.

The statement, accompanied by grisly pictures of the dead and wounded, said at least five civilians and five local police were killed in the fighting. It added that a further 20 "burned bodies" had been found alongside weapons.

Unverified video shared on social media appeared to show parts of the town still ablaze on Monday afternoon while civilians scurried to safety amid the rattle of small arms fire.

An army source told AFP fighting was continuing as darkness fell. "Residents in town are fleeing. We do not know exact figures yet," the officer said.

The Northern Alliance, an umbrella group of rebels including the MNDAA which has yet to join national peace talks, confirmed its members were fighting in Laukkai.

But in a Facebook post it said they carried out the attack "to resist an enemy offensive in self-defence" and cited Myanmar military operations since December.

The latest fighting raises the spectre of a fresh refugee exodus into China.

In early 2015 tens of thousands fled there when dozens of civilians, rebels and army troops died in months of fighting across the remote and mountainous region.

China said Myanmar warplanes dropped bombs on its side of the border during that bout of fighting.

Kokang has strong bonds with China - local people speak a Chinese dialect and China's yuan is the common currency. Observers say Beijing holds considerable sway over the rebels.

Skirmishes with the Northern Alliance have intensified across Shan state since late last year, claiming more than 160 lives across an arc of land in the long border region. </s> YANGON (Reuters) - Some 30 people died in clashes between ethnic rebels and Myanmar security forces in a restive area along the border with China on Monday, the government said, dealing a blow to leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s goal of reaching peace with minorities.

Suu Kyi’s nearly one-year-old government is increasingly besieged by ethnic rebels, grappling with an alliance of militias in the north and a new Rohingya insurgency rebelling against decades of persecution in the northwest of the country.

The attack came after the Nobel Peace Prize winner met a delegation of ethnic armed groups last week to convince them to take part in a major peace conference. Suu Kyi swept to power in 2015 on promises of national reconciliation and the meeting was aimed at giving fresh impetus to the stuttering peace process.

“I strongly urge all sides to come to the peace negotiating table by abandoning the armed attacks, which have caused many deaths and problems for the citizens, who are not guilty, and the residents of the area,” Suu Kyi said in a statement reacting to the assault released late on Monday.

Fighters from the predominantly ethnic Chinese Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) launched a pre-dawn attack on police posts, military installations and government administrators in the capital of the northeastern Kokang region, Laukkai.

As a result, some 30 people died, including civilians and police officers. Hotels and cars were destroyed and four policemen have been taken hostage, the government said.

MNDAA is a part of the Northern Alliance - a coalition of rebel groups comprising one of Myanmar’s most powerful militias, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), and two smaller groups that have been in a stand-off with the Myanmar military since clashes in the Kokang area in 2015.

Many died and tens of thousands fled the region during that fighting, which also spilled over into Chinese territory and resulted in the death of five Chinese people, angering Beijing.

Myanmar state television, MRTV, said the fighting with MNDAA was continuing at the time of Suu Kyi’s statement. </s> YANGON: Nine policemen have been killed in a militant attack in Myanmar's western Rakhine state, police said on Sunday, as tensions ratchet up in a state riven by ethnic and religious conflict.

The attack late Saturday took place in Yoetayoke village, just an hour north of Rakhine state's capital Sittwe.

"Nine police were killed, one was injured and another one is missing," a senior police officer told AFP, not wanting to be named. </s> Armed men believed to be from the long-oppressed Rohingya Muslim minority launched a coordinated assault on three border police posts in the early hours Sunday, killing nine police, injuring five and making off with dozens of weapons and more than 10,000 rounds of ammunition.

Military personnel and police reinforcements have poured into the Muslim-majority township of Maungdaw, northern Rakhine State, and have clashed with groups of up to 300 men, armed with pistols, swords and knives, according to official reports.

Human rights groups and advocates for the stateless Rohingya have voiced concern that the civilian population may be caught up in the authorities' violent response.

Myanmar's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi said that her government was "exercising the rule of law" in dealing with the attacks, the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper said on Thursday.

Authorities had not yet confirmed who was behind the attacks, Suu Kyi said on Wednesday.

The military's official newspaper, Myawady, said that another 10 alleged attackers were killed, and a rifle was seized, in a clash on Tuesday morning at Kyetyoepyin village, Maungdaw Township.

In a separate incident on Wednesday, the military accused armed attackers of setting fire to 25 houses after an aborted attack on border police quarters in Kyikanpyin village, the site of one of Sunday's attacks.

The killings bring the total death toll in northern Rakhine State since Sunday to 39, including 13 security personnel.

The 26 alleged attackers reported killed include several who a local resident told Reuters were shot while unarmed and fleeing soldiers.

Campaign group Fortify Rights said on Wednesday it had received reports of extrajudicial killings in the area and called on Myanmar's government to "protect civilians regardless of religion or ethnicity."

Authorities have also detained four men, identified as local Muslims, who they allege were involved in the attacks.

The Rohingya bore the brunt of intercommunal clashes in Rakhine in 2012, in which more 100 people were killed. They make up most of the 125,000 people still living in displacement camps in Rakhine State and face severe restrictions on their movements. </s> At least 19 people were killed in clashes between Myanmar’s military and an ethnic insurgent group in the remote northern Shan state close to the Chinese border, AFP reported quoting unidentified military officials.

Among the dead were 18 civilians and a policeman, DPA reported. About 32 people, including 27 civilians, three policemen, and two local paramilitary troopers were injured in the attack.

The encounters between the Myanmar military and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, or TNLA, have reportedly increased in recent months while the global focus has remained on the Rohingya refugee crisis in the western part of the country.

“Fighting took place since 5 am this morning [4 am Indian Standard Time] at three places: two military bases in Muse and one near a bridge on the way to Lashio town,” the rebel group’s spokesperson Major Mai Aik Kyaw told AFP.

The TNLA claimed that its attack was a response to the Myanmar Army’s recent offensives against the Kachin Independence Army, which is one Myanmar’s most powerful ethnic minority armed groups.
According to the government of Myanmar, at least 30 people are killed in an attack on various police, military, and government installations by the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army in Laukkai. Four police officers were also taken hostage.