Ethiopian rebels announce new alliance as civil war reignites

Ethiopia’s civil war looks set to restart after the former ruling Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) seized control of the Mekelle International Airport in Tigray last Thursday, since then skirmishes and airstrikes have been reported in northern Ethiopia.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry warned citizens against travelling to the region and urged those already there to avoid intercity travel and contact the embassy. Ethiopian Jews primarily live in regions near where fighting is expected to begin.

The TPLF has begun preparing to restart the Tigray war, which ended in 2022 and left nearly 600,000 dead and over two and a half million displaced. The TPLF and the government have been facing increasingly hostile clashes since January as the Federal government has sought to impose tighter control on the region while the TPLF has sought to monopolize influence.

The TPLF accused the federal government of imposing a blockade on Tigray after the TPLF seized full control over the state in May. This led the Ethiopian electoral board to deregister the TPLF as a party, blocking it from running in the election last June.

Prior to the airport seizure, the TPLF announced it was moving to align with six other armed ethnic militias in Ethiopia to prevent what it calls a ‘horizontal’ war in favour of a "vertical" war. A horizontal war refers to war between ethnic groups, while a vertical war refers to a war between the people and the government.

The six other allied ethnic militias are the Amhara Fano National Movement (AFNM), the former chief rival of the TPLF; the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), the Afar Revolutionary Democratic Unity Front (ARDUF), the Benishangul People’s Liberation Movement (BPLM), and the Gumuz People’s Democratic Movement (GPDM). Some of these groups were allied with the TPLF during the previous Tigray war. The alliance's state goal is to overthrow the current government of Ethiopia.

This "horizontal" alliance marks a departure from the 2020–22 Tigray war which saw some ethnic militias side with the federal government and others against it, while Eritrea supported the federal government.

This time around, Ethiopia has accused Eritrea of supporting the TPLF. Only a few days before clashes between the TPLF and federal forces began, US President Donald Trump announced the removal of sanctions on Eritrea that had been imposed during the Tigray war,amid speculation that the move was connected to the increasing crisis in the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb.

Eritrea has remained heavily involved in internal Ethiopian politics ever since it gained independence from Ethiopia during its independence in 1993.

Eritrea is also just one of a number of countries involved in the nascent conflict. Both Egypt and the Sudanese government have been accused of supporting the rebels by Ethiopian Chief of Staff Field Marshal Birhanu Jula, who said, "The Tigray front and the alliance cannot achieve anything on their own unless they are pushed, supported and supplied by Sudan, Egypt and other forces."

Egypt and Ethiopia have long clashed diplomatically over the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile, which Egypt says would have a catastrophic impact on Egyptian water resources, with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi even hinting that war was on the table.

Sudan has similarly supported Egypt’s position and, in return, received Egyptian military support in its own civil war against the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

Ethiopia has been accused of supporting the RSF by allowing the UAE to resupply the group through its territory.

This web of alliances and interconnected support networks has led to fears that a renewed conflict in Ethiopia could spark a wider regional conflict, drawing in both the Sudanese Civil War and the Somali Civil War, where Egyptian and Emirati support networks are also involved.