An ethnic rebel group has launched an attack against Myanmar's military in a northern town, leaving at least 15 people dead and 20 injured, including civilians.
The Ta'ang National Liberation Army launched three attacks just after 5am on Saturday in the town of Muse in Shan state, government spokesman Zaw Htay said on Facebook. Two of the attacks occurred at military bases and the other at a bridge.
The TNLA is among more than a dozen ethnic rebel groups that have been fighting the central government for greater autonomy for decades. In the past few months, clashes between rebels and the military in Myanmar's northeastern region have intensified, resulting in thousands of displaced in neighbouring Kachin state.
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Myanmar's army has been criticised for extrajudicial killings, torture, forced labour, rape and other abuses against the country's many minority groups.
Aye Myint, a police officer in Muse, said the death toll was 19, and that rebel fighters used small arms as well as mortars. Video on social media showed smoke rising above Muse's prominent trading centre.
Nan Mwe Phown, a Red Cross member who was at a hospital in Muse, said the dead included 13 male civilians and two women, one of whom was pregnant, as well as several police officers.
The army has been separately accused of systematic human rights violations against the Rohingya Muslim minority in the western state of Rakhine, forcing more than 700,000 Rohingya to flee to neighbouring Bangladesh since last August.
