MYANMAR’S North East Command has fallen to rebels in the military’s biggest setback in the civil war to date, according to a major insurgent group.

The Tatmadaw (Burmese military) admitted it had lost contact with the strategically important army headquarters in the town of Lashio, near the Chinese border.

Morgan Michaels, an analyst with Myanmar Conflict Map, called it “the most humiliating defeat of the war” and said it would make it extremely hard for the army to claw back control in the north-east.