Myanmar's embattled junta chief has warned civilians in territory recently captured by ethnic minority armed groups to prepare for military counterattacks, state media reported on Wednesday.
The military has lost swaths of territory near the border with China in northern Shan state to an alliance of armed ethnic minority groups and "People's Defence Forces" battling to overturn the junta’s 2021 coup.
The groups have seized a regional military command and taken control of lucrative border trade crossings, prompting rare public criticism by military supporters of the junta's top leadership.
Junta troops "will... launch counterattacks," junta chief Min Aung Hlaing said on Tuesday in the Shan state capital Taunggyi, according to the Global New Light of Myanmar.
He accused the alliance of using "administrative buildings and innocent civilians as human shields," according to the newspaper.
"Therefore, the people residing in towns and villages where the terrorists unlawfully occupied should be aware of security so as not to face exploitation."
The junta is battling widespread armed opposition and its soldiers are accused of bloody rampages and using air and artillery strikes to punish civilian communities.
It announced this week that the three main ethnic minority armed groups battling the military in Shan state had been officially declared "terrorist" organizations.
The declaration will not affect the fighting against the Arakan Army (AA), Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) and the Ta'ang National Liberation Army (TNLA); however, those found supporting or contacting them can now face legal action.
The alliance and PDF groups have battled closer to the second city of Mandalay, home to around 1.5 million people and the military's central command.
Opponents of the military launched a rocket attack on Mandalay on Tuesday, damaging buildings and wounding one person, local media reported, in a rare attack on an urban area.
An opinion piece in Wednesday's Global New Light of Myanmar criticized the military's recent losses in Shan state.
"Who would have thought that Lashio would fall," it said, referring to a Shan town of 150,000 people that was captured last month.
"Who would then give the definite assurance that nothing will happen to whatever you own in Mandalay?"
"Once the artillery shells started to rain down upon the city, it would be too late to move out of the city in an orderly manner," it said.
