State media in Myanmar say the Southeast Asian nation's military government has recaptured a strategic gateway town after nearly a year of effort, marking a rare turnaround in the country’s northeast, where an alliance of ethnic rebel militias seized a large swath of territory in an offensive that began in late 2023. Nawnghkio, which sits on a major highway trading route linking central Myanmar to China, had been under the control of the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, a group in the Three Brotherhood Alliance, since the rebel group captured it in June last year. Its recapture comes after a long period where the military government had been seen as being on the defensive against rebel forces in the civil war that is being fought over much of the country.
