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Myanmar Military Will Hit Back at Ethnic Armed Groups' Offensive

Myanmar junta chief Min Aung Hlaing (R, pictured with China's public security minister Wang Xiaohong) said the military will hit back at ethnic armed groups waging an offensive in the north of the country. Handout / MYANMAR MILITARY INFORMATION TEAM/AFP/File
Myanmar junta chief Min Aung Hlaing (R, pictured with China's public security minister Wang Xiaohong) said the military will hit back at ethnic armed groups waging an offensive in the north of the country. Handout / MYANMAR MILITARY INFORMATION TEAM/AFP/File
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Myanmar Military Will Hit Back at Ethnic Armed Groups' Offensive

Myanmar junta chief Min Aung Hlaing (R, pictured with China's public security minister Wang Xiaohong) said the military will hit back at ethnic armed groups waging an offensive in the north of the country. Handout / MYANMAR MILITARY INFORMATION TEAM/AFP/File
Myanmar junta chief Min Aung Hlaing (R, pictured with China's public security minister Wang Xiaohong) said the military will hit back at ethnic armed groups waging an offensive in the north of the country. Handout / MYANMAR MILITARY INFORMATION TEAM/AFP/File

Myanmar's junta chief said the military will strike back at ethnic armed groups waging an offensive in the north of the country, seizing towns and blocking trade routes to China, state media reported Friday.

Fighting has raged for a week across a wide swathe of Shan state in what analysts say is the biggest military challenge to the junta since it seized power in 2021, AFP said.

The Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), the Ta'ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and the Arakan Army (AA) said on Thursday they had captured dozens of outposts and four towns and blocked vital trade routes to China.

"The government will launch counter-attacks" against the armed groups, Min Aung Hlaing said in a speech to members of the State Administration Council, as the junta calls itself.

MNDAA and TNLA fighters had "attacked local security camps and departmental offices in the Kokang region" bordering China, he said, according to the Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper.

He also accused the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) -- an ethnic armed group in neighboring Kachin state -- of attacking "transport facilities" and military bases, and warned the military would retaliate.

On Wednesday a junta spokesman said the military had lost control of Chinshwehaw town, a major trade hub on the border with China's Yunnan province.

China called on Thursday for an "immediate" ceasefire in Shan state -- home to a planned billion-dollar rail link in its Belt and Road infrastructure project.

Myanmar's borderlands are home to more than a dozen ethnic armed groups, some of which have fought the military for decades over autonomy and control of lucrative resources.

Some have trained and equipped newer "People's Defense Forces" that have sprung up since the 2021 coup and the military's bloody crackdown on dissent.

The AA, MNDAA and TNLA say the military has suffered dozens killed, wounded and captured since Friday.

The remoteness of the rugged, jungle-clad region -- home to pipelines that supply oil and gas to China -- and patchy communications make it difficult to verify casualty numbers in the fighting, which the United Nations fears has displaced thousands.

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Iran Is ‘Pressing the Gas Pedal’ on Uranium Enrichment, IAEA Chief Says 

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi speaks at the Annual Meeting of World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP)
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi speaks at the Annual Meeting of World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP)
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Iran Is ‘Pressing the Gas Pedal’ on Uranium Enrichment, IAEA Chief Says 

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi speaks at the Annual Meeting of World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP)
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi speaks at the Annual Meeting of World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP)

Iran is "pressing the gas pedal" on its enrichment of uranium to near weapons grade, UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi said on Wednesday, adding that Iran's recently announced acceleration in enrichment was starting to take effect.

Grossi said last month that Iran had informed the International Atomic Energy Agency that it would "dramatically" accelerate enrichment of uranium to up to 60% purity, closer to the roughly 90% of weapons grade.

Western powers called the step a serious escalation and said there was no civil justification for enriching to that level and that no other country had done so without producing nuclear weapons. Iran has said its program is entirely peaceful and it has the right to enrich uranium to any level it wants.

"Before it was (producing) more or less seven kilograms (of uranium enriched to up to 60%) per month, now it's above 30 or more than that. So I think this is a clear indication of an acceleration. They are pressing the gas pedal," Grossi told reporters at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

According to an International Atomic Energy Agency yardstick, about 42 kg of uranium enriched to that level is enough in principle, if enriched further, for one nuclear bomb. Grossi said Iran currently had about 200 kg of uranium enriched to up to 60%.

Still, he said it would take time to install and bring online the extra centrifuges - machines that enrich uranium - but that the acceleration was starting to happen.

"We are going to start seeing steady increases from now," he said.

Grossi has called for diplomacy between Iran and the administration of new US President Donald Trump, who in his first term, pulled the United States out of a nuclear deal between Iran and major powers that had imposed strict limits on Iran's atomic activities. That deal has since unraveled.

"One can gather from the first statements from President Trump and some others in the new administration that there is a disposition, so to speak, to have a conversation and perhaps move into some form of an agreement," he said.

Separately, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said at Davos that Iran must make a first step towards improving relations with countries in the region and the United States by making it clear it does not aim to develop nuclear weapons.