Burma military's armored vehicle in Mongkoe in Muse district in Northern Shan State

The latest clashes come as the KIA prepares for bilateral talks with the Burmese government.

Burmese government forces and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) have clashed in northern Shan State’s Muse District again today, despite a unilateral Burma army ceasefire that isn’t scheduled to end until April 30.

The latest round of fighting in the area—the second since Thursday—began shortly after 8am this morning when a military column from the Burma army's Light Infantry Division (LID) 99 exchanged fire with Battalion 36 of the KIA's Brigade 6.

“This is the same military column we clashed with two days ago,” said a KIA officer from Brigade 6 who asked not to be named.

“They entered the area controlled by Battalion 36 around midnight last night. The first exchange began around 8:20 this morning and continued for 30 minutes, and then we started fighting again, and we are still fighting now,” he said, speaking to KNG before noon on Saturday.

According to the latest available information, the clashes ended around mid-day.

The KIA officer said the fighting was deliberately started by the Burmese forces, which he said were trying to seize control of the village of Howa, which serves as the headquarters for Battalion 36.

The Burmese army is also believed to be preparing an attack on the headquarters of KIA Battalion 9, which is based in Dima, in Kutkai Township. According to the KIA Brigade 6 officer, the Burma army gathered 300 troops near the village earlier today.

The clashes on Thursday between the KIA’s Battalion 9 and Light Infantry Battalion 418, which is under the Burmese army’s LID 99, were centered on Manjang, a village that is along the way to Dima.

LID 99 is regarded as a “shock-troop” division and has been used in some of the Burmese military’s most brutal operations. It has long been accused of committing war crimes throughout the country, as outlined in a 2018 report by Reuters that linked LID 99 troops to the systematic mass killing, displacement and rape of Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine State in 2017.

Top leaders of the KIA and its political wing, the Kachin Independence Organization, as well as high-ranking officers from each brigade and battalion, have been meeting at their Laiza headquarters since April 16 to discuss bilateral talks with the government slated for April 30.

Late last year, the Burmese army declared a four-month unilateral ceasefire in Kachin and Shan states that was scheduled to last from December 21, 2018, to April 30, 2019.

However, these latest clashes appear to indicate that the army has declared an early end to the ceasefire ahead of talks set to take place later this month.