Sawt Falasteen - Myanmar rebels take the road to Mandalay

An offensive launched a year ago Sunday has seen opponents of the military seize much of the 480-kilometre-long (300-mile) route that connects second city Mandalay to China, Myanmar's biggest trade partner.

Control of the road denies the junta lucrative taxes, threatens its bases in the central plains, and is a huge morale booster for its opponents as the civil war grinds through its fourth year.

AFP images from National Highway 3 show the destruction wrought by the previous year's fighting and rebel groups trying to administer their newly seized territory.

The route begins at Muse, a town of ill-repute pressed up against the border with China.

Each morning, hundreds of locals queued for day passes to cross into China to buy medicine and consumer goods that can be re-sold back in Myanmar.

More than $2 billion worth of trade passed through Muse in the 2023-2024 financial year, according to the junta's commerce ministry. Analysts say much more goes through off the books.

But following the rebels' spectacular advance, venturing into the hinterland from Muse requires some savvy -- and cash -- said Aung Gyi, a driver.

"We're OK if we can negotiate when we meet with ethnic rebel soldiers on roads and they ask for money," he said, asking to use a pseudonym.

Around an hour from Muse was a checkpoint manned by soldiers from the Ta'ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), one of the rebel groups behind last year's offensive.

- 'Fighting up and close' -

Around 30 kilometres further on is the town of Kutkai, infamous for the production of methamphetamine and normally home to around 50,000 people.

The fighting that has pushed the military out has scattered many of its residents and scarred the town.

Rubble littered across an open patch of ground was all that remained of the main market, flattened by a military airstrike.

Nearby, vendors had set up makeshift bamboo stalls to sell medicine and clothes.

"In northern Shan, the sound of gunfire is not very strange for us," said resident Soe Naung, asking to use a pseudonym.

"But when we saw the fighting up close in our town, we were very afraid. We witnessed it with our own eyes.

"We can only hope our city will revive if the national highway opens again. Now our daily lives are full of fear about air strikes."

In Kutkai, highway traffic consisted mostly of motorbikes laden with goods wrapped in tarpaulins.

Two young police officers in ethnic rebel uniforms sat on plastic chairs by the roadside and watched the traffic go by.

- Burma Road -

Roughly halfway along the highway, the city of Lashio embodies the biggest defeat the junta has suffered since it seized power in 2021.

Its four-lane toll gate was riddled with bullet holes and several panels were hanging loose, remnants of fierce fighting for the city where around 150,000 people lived before the offensive.

Lashio was famous as the terminus of the "Burma Road" built by the British usng local labour to supply Chinese forces battling Japanese invaders during the Second World War.

Now it is the prize of the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), an ethnic Chinese rebel group, whose red and blue flags flutter over its pockmarked buildings.

A spiked black gate bears the name of a military engineering unit that was chased from the city.

On another street, two men were fixing electricity pylons.

The MNDAA is working to install a civilian administration it hopes will tempt residents to return to the city.

The military is trying to keep people away, and on Wednesday launched its latest airstrike on Lashio, according to local media and a rescue group.

- Hill station -

Near the end of National Highway 3, the former British hill station of Pyin Oo Lwin is still in the hands of the military.

The road passes grand houses of teak and brick and the military's elite officer training academy.

"We also hear shooting sounds here sometimes," said one female vendor at the town's bustling market.

A two-hour drive down into the dusty plains places you in the former royal capital of Mandalay and the end of the highway.

Targeting the city of 1.5 million is the "Mandalay People's Defence Force," which fought alongside the ethnic rebels in the Shan hills during the past year.

In August, the "Mandalay PDF" hailed the bonds its fighters now shared with Shan state, forged in battle against the military along "National Highway 3."

"Now, the dream of a day trip for Shan noodles is coming true," it said in a statement, referencing a popular local dish from the region.

K.AbuTaha--SF-PST