"The past few weeks have seen some of the heaviest fighting in Myanmar?s decades-long civil war with government forces launching determined attacks against the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), an ethnic force in the far north of the country. And for the first time ever, the government has used helicopter gunships and attack aircraft against the country?s ethnic rebels. Most of the fighting is taking place around the KIA?s headquarters at the border town of Laiza near China, and the government seems determined to crush the Kachin resistance and gain control over the area now administered by the rebels. The military campaign also sends signals to about a dozen other ethnic armies which have entered into ceasefire agreements with the government. In a statement issued on January 1, the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC), an umbrella organisation of 12 such ethnic groups based mainly on the Thai border in the south, said they felt threatened by the offensive as well - and called for unity among Myanmar?s multitude of traditionally factious ethnic militias. "If we are not able to act collectively now we will be destroyed individually," said a participant at the meeting that adopted the statement..."