The Burmese military ramped up air strikes as rebel forces captured 30 soldiers in Myanmar.

The Myanmar Air Force pounded Karenni troops with retaliatory air strikes on a captured army base in Kayah State on July 3.

The fusillade was launched after resistance soldiers shot down an air force fighter jet with anti-aircraft firearms a day earlier.

A Karenni Army spokesman said the Myanmar Air Force sent four FTC-2000G planes to drop bombs on the Pha Song camp, but the explosives missed 'because the planes were at a very high altitude.'

The air strikes were said to have hit the mountains west of their target.

The Karenni Army has been occupying the Pha Song base since July 1, when they drove out the junta's Infantry Battalion 134.

Thirty Burmese soldiers were captured and a cache of weapons and ammunition was seized, including 120 mm, 81 mm, and 60 mm mortars, RPGs, heavy machine guns, and drone signal jammers.

Myanmar has fallen into civil war following the removal of democratically elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, with a military coup in 2021.

Soldiers responded with barbaric force on protesting civilians leading to widespread condemnation and financial sanctions. Rebel groups and civilian militias around the country have since been locked in a series of ongoing clashes with the ruling military.

Aung San Suu Kyi has since been jailed for 33 years on politically motivated charges and is likely to die behind bars unless the army is toppled - a tragic end the politician hailed by Barack Obama as an 'inspirational icon of democracy'.