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Ukraine’s president ordered his forces to cease fire Friday and halt military operations for a week against pro-Russian separatists in the country’s east — the first step in a peace plan he hopes will end the fighting that has killed hundreds.
The Kremlin dismissed the plan, saying it sounded like an ultimatum and lacked any firm offer to open talks with insurgents.
After heavy attacks by the Burma Army, the Shan State Army-North (SSA-N) has lost its camp at Red Ruby Mountain in Mongsu, southern Shan State.
An SSA-N commander at the frontline said: “The Burma Army started attacking us at Ruby Mountain in Mongsu on June 11, 2014. They (Burma Army) fired at us with heavy shells for two days, so local people were affected by the fierce battle. On the order of our headquarters, we withdrew from the camp.”
He added, “The Burma Army forced people to work as their porters and human shields at the frontline. We (SSA) were requested by the people not to ambush and shoot at the frontline. If we had, the villagers and porters would have got shot.”
Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian separatists were locked in fierce fighting in the east of Ukraine on Thursday and a rebel commander acknowledged big losses among separatists heavily outgunned by government forces.
Even as President Petro Poroshenko and his team prepared to unveil their blueprint for ending more than two months of rebellion, government forces, using artillery and heavy armor, said they were tightening the noose on separatists near Krasny Liman, north of the main regional hub of Donetsk.
ISIS militants have launched an attack on Iraq’s largest oil refinery with mortars and machine gun fire, refinery employees say. The extremist group has been gaining ground in Iraq, seizing control of territory in its mission to create an Islamic state.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) surrounded the refinery last week as it seized control of Iraq’s second-largest city of Mosul. In response to the escalation in violence management at the refinery halted operations at the facility and evacuated foreign workers.
KNLA soldiers on the Salween River, heading to frontline areas in northern Karen State. (Photo: Saw Yan Naing / The Irrawaddy)
Burmese troops have attacked a group of ethnic Karen soldiers in the country’s southeast, leaving one man dead and raising concerns about the government’s commitment to a nationwide ceasefire, Karen sources say.
The alleged attack on the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) at an outpost in Tenasserim Division comes as the government army continues a much more publicized offensive in the country’s far north against the Kachin Independence Army (KIA).