Burmese insurgents capture jade-mining town in Mandalay

Burmese insurgents claim they have captured a lucrative jade-mining town in Myanmar's Mandalay region on Wednesday.

Footage shows members of the Ta'ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), seen in the video wearing military camouflage, receiving a hero's welcome from villagers in Mogoke town on July 24.

Locals applauded and played music as the TNLA members were paraded through the streets of Mandalay - a region best known from Rudyard Kipling's poem calling for the return of British soldiers.

The TNLA said they have seized the western part of Mogoke on July 16, and have been battling for control of the eastern half since July 18, before finally taking the whole town.

TNLA spokesperson Lway Yay Oo told local media on July 24 that the armed group has successfully occupied the four remaining military junta camps in the town.

She said: 'We have completed the occupation today.'

The TNLA is part of a coalition of three ethnic minority militia forces that ended a ceasefire with the Burmese military on June 25 over the army's repeated aerial strikes.

Myanmar has fallen into civil war following the removal of democratically elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, with a military coup in 2021.

Soldiers - supported by finance from neighboring Thailand - responded with barbaric force on protesting civilians leading to widespread condemnation and financial sanctions from the developed world.

Rebel groups and civilian militias around the country have since been locked in a series of ongoing clashes with the ruling military.

Aung San Suu Kyi has since been jailed for 33 years on politically motivated charges and is likely to die behind bars unless the army is toppled - a tragic end the politician hailed by Barack Obama as an 'inspirational icon of democracy'.