KIA Announces Shift to Defensive Strategy as Regime Troops Pour into Kachin State

The Kachin Independence Army (KIA) has switched to a defensive strategy amid a buildup of regime troops in Kachin State, the ethnic armed group’s spokesman told The Irrawaddy.

The strategic shift comes after the regime dispatched reinforcements, weapons, and ammunition to the Northern Military Command Headquarters in Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin State. The buildup began shortly after the military recaptured the Mandalay-Myitkyina Road.

Regime forces reclaimed the key 541-km supply route in early May after a months-long counteroffensive to retake resistance-held towns along the road from northern Mandalay through Sagaing Region.

A convoy of around 300 vehicles, including mobile howitzers, left Mandalay on May 9 and arrived at the Northern Military Command HQ last week.

“We expect the regime to launch offensives in five Kachin State townships where it has imposed emergency rule. We will defend them to our best ability,” KIA spokesman Colonel Naw Bu told The Irrawaddy last Friday.

The new pseudo-civilian regime imposed martial law in Sumprabum, Shwegu, Injangyang, Tsawlaw, and Chipwi townships after coup leader-turned-president Min Aung Hlaing extended emergency rule in April. The KIA controls all of them except Shwegu, where heavy fighting was reported earlier this month.

Meanwhile, former army caption Zin Yaw, who defected following the 2021 military coup, said the regime is expected to launch a major offensive to retake the 190-km Union Highway running south from Myitkyina to Bhamo.

The KIA and its allies seized control of the route in 2024 and have been battling to take Bhamo, Kachin State’s second-largest city, for over a year.

Colonel Naw Bu stated that fighting is currently intensifying in the jade mining hub of Hpakant, 150km west of Myitkyina, where regime reinforcements are pushing to reclaim territory lost to the KIA and allies.

Regime troops from Shwegu Township are also advancing southwards toward KIA-controlled Mabein town in northern Shan State, triggering clashes along the route, Naw Bu added.

The KIA—armed wing of the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO)—has trained and armed several thousand anti-regime activists for the People’s Defense Force

(PDF). Formed in response to the military’s coup and lethal crackdown on peaceful nationwide protests, the PDF serves as the armed wing of the civilian National Unity Government (NUG).

Following the coup, the KIA has allied with the PDF, Chin units, the Arakan Army, the All Burma Students’ Democratic Front (ABSDF), and other armed resistance groups to conduct anti-regime offensives in Kachin, northern Shan and Chin states and Sagaing Region.