Chinese and Burmese security agents investigate Laogai bomb blasts

The serial bomb explosions in Laogai, former capital of the Kokang rebels in northern Shan State, Burma a week ago, are being separately investigated by Chinese and Burmese security agents, a local source close to the agents told Kachin News Group today.

Laogai sources said, the ruling junta has dispatched a large number of policemen from other towns of Shan State and Mandalay to Laogai, which was captured from the Kokang ceasefire group, also called the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) led by Peng Jiasheng in August last year by the Burmese Army.

The junta has also sent more Burmese troops and policemen to the two towns in opposite places---Laogai and Tangyan near Tarsan Bridge on the Salween River, the main entrance to Wa territory, added Laogai sources.

In the wake of the explosions, China’s southwest Yunnan province government has sent special security agents to the Burmese border near the Kokang’s territory to investigate, sources close to border-based Chinese security agents said.

United Kachinland Army (UKA), an anti-Naypyitaw Kachin armed group based west of Salween River and opposite Kokang territory was investigated in connection with the Laogai blasts last weekend by Yunnan security agents, the group’s officer told KNG today.

Laogai sources said Burmese security agents detained three Kokang Chinese suspects a few days after the explosion. The suspects are being forced to confess to triggering the blasts.

The junta-run New Light of Myanmar said, the remote controlled bombs exploded twice on two consecutive days--- on February 15 and 17 in Laogai and injured at least 11 people including three Chinese citizens.

In the state-run paper the junta accused former Kokang rebels led by Peng Jiasheng of masterminding the bomb blasts

Till now, no rebel group has claimed responsibility for the explosions.

According to sources among Yunnan-based Chinese security agents’, the junta is planning to appeal to the Chinese central government to stop any support to border-based ethnic rebels--- the MNDAA, United Wa State Army and the Kachin Independence Organization by referring to the bomb blasts in Laogai.

There is a strong military alliance between UWSA and KIO, the main ethnic armed groups, which rejected the junta’s proposal to transform their armed-wings to the Burmese Army-controlled Border Guard Forces.

Source :http://kachinnews.com/News/Chinese-and-Burmese-security-agents-investigate-Laogai-bomb-blasts.html