Ethiopia's Army Vows Restraint as Tigray Fighting Reignites War Fears

Ethiopia's army chief said federal forces were showing restraint despite renewed clashes with the Tigray People's Liberation Front, as fighting that resumed on Wednesday spread from Tigray into the neighbouring Afar and Amhara regions, raising fears of a return to the 2020-2022 civil war.¹²⁴

Fighting spreads north

Heavy clashes between the TPLF and federal government forces resumed since Wednesday, according to multiple accounts, with Tigrayan fighters seizing airports and pushing into Afar and Amhara states.¹²

The Afar town of Erebti fell to TPLF rebels on Sunday after heavy artillery bombardment, and the group is now advancing toward Afdeera, roughly 100 kilometres to the east, in what is described as an offensive aimed at cutting supply lines from Djibouti. The violence has forced at least 150,000 residents of Afar from their homes.¹²

Further north, clashes persisted near Sama, Soqota and Raya Alamata, and Al Jazeera reported that government troops were closing in on Alamata.⁴

Communications in Tigray have been disrupted since Friday, with telecoms providers reporting major outages in phone and internet service, and internet access was also reported cut more broadly across the north.¹²⁴

A drone strike hit the headquarters of Tigrai TV, a station seen as a key outlet for authorities in Mekelle with around 400 employees, days after the federal government suspended it indefinitely on September 21 and barred other outlets from broadcasting its reports. A journalist at the station said, "We heard a loud bang from a drone strike elsewhere and we fled the building."¹²

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was troubled by reports of drone use and harm to civilians in northern Ethiopia.¹²

Accusations of foreign backing

Ethiopia's army chief of staff, Field Marshal Berhanu Jula, charged that Eritrea and Sudan were supporting armed groups battling federal troops, and separately alleged that Egypt was aiding an alliance working to topple Abiy Ahmed's government, Euronews reported. He said, "We are fighting forces that are organised and allied to serve the interests of external forces," and added, "Neither Shaebia (Eritrea) nor the TPLF can achieve anything alone, even if they are allied, unless they are backed, supported and supplied by Sudan, Egypt and other external powers."¹²³

He also said groups opposed to the government "could not succeed unless they were pushed, supported and supplied from abroad," and characterised Eritrea as an intermediary channeling outside support to armed groups operating inside Ethiopia, Euronews reported. Eritrea has denied accusations that it is funding armed groups, according to Al Jazeera, and fears that landlocked Ethiopia has been planning to seize direct access to the Red Sea.³⁴²¹

According to Al Jazeera, seven armed groups unveiled a new coalition, the Ethiopian Peoples' Forces Alliance for Survival, with the shared goal of ousting Abiy Ahmed's government; the TPLF had said days earlier that it had joined forces with six other armed groups.⁴⁵

Army says it is exercising restraint

According to Al Jazeera, Berhanu Jula described the military's reaction to what he termed provocations from the Tigray front as measured and disciplined, adding that army leadership favours a posture of strategic calm rather than all-out military confrontation.⁴

Al Jazeera reported that the army announced on Thursday it had killed 272 Tigrayan fighters and wounded 260 during a counter-offensive in North Wollo. The TPLF's Tigray Army countered that federal forces had mounted a comprehensive assault using infantry, mechanised units and drones. Addisalem Balema, a member of the TPLF's central committee, described the conflict to Al Jazeera as having escalated into "a full war."⁴

France 24 and Arab News reported that the federal government still holds a decisive military edge, backed by an extensive drone fleet, some 500,000 troops and outside support.¹²

Roots in an unfinished peace

The latest violence comes after the 2020-2022 civil war, a conflict that claimed an estimated 600,000 lives and was marked by extensive war crimes and sexual violence. The 2022 Pretoria Peace Agreement, brokered with the involvement of African institutions and Washington, was never fully implemented, and around one million people remain unable to return to their homes.¹²⁴

Alemayehu Weldemariam, a law professor at Indiana University, told Al Jazeera that the federal government was largely responsible for the accord's breakdown. He said the war had been building for some time, noting that the federal government had systematically undermined the ceasefire's terms, citing fuel, service and cash restrictions imposed on Tigray and the government's failure to set up the promised interim administration. "What was supposed to be an interim arrangement turned out to be permanent," he said, with Tigray excluded from national elections.⁴

According to Al Jazeera, the United States rescinded sanctions on Ethiopia and Eritrea linked to atrocities from the earlier conflict, citing the expiration of the national emergency declaration. Rights groups have also accused the TPLF of a forced recruitment campaign this year, and the group ruled Ethiopia for three decades until 2018, according to Foreign Policy, a point contested elsewhere in reporting.⁴¹⁵