Ethiopia fighting risks widening into regional war, analyst warns

Renewed fighting in northern Ethiopia risks spreading beyond Tigray and destabilising the wider Horn of Africa, an analyst with the International Crisis Group has warned.

Magnus Taylor, the group's deputy project director for the Horn of Africa, said the newly announced Alliance for Survival combines political opposition to Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's government with what appears to be an opportunistic military alignment.

The coalition brings together the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) and Amhara Fano forces, which fought on opposing sides during Ethiopia's 2020-2022 war. Taylor noted that the current conflict differs from the earlier one precisely because some of the actors have changed, with the TPLF again fighting the federal government while the Fano are now arrayed alongside it rather than against the Tigrayans.

He said the alliance was essentially a way of coordinating different armed groups to develop parallel campaigns against the federal government. If that cooperation develops into coordinated military action, it could pose a serious challenge to federal forces.

Whether the coalition proves a game changer remains to be seen, Taylor said. It is a clear concern for the federal government, which may yet get a handle on the situation quickly. If it cannot, he warned, the consequences for northern Ethiopia would be serious and could spark a devastating regional war, potentially drawing in opponents of the government in Addis Ababa, including Eritrea.

Taylor said there is a real risk the fighting could spread around the country. Action by the TPLF and the Fano in Amhara could trigger new offensives by other groups in Oromia, the Somali region, Benishangul-Gumuz and elsewhere.

The Pretoria peace agreement, which ended the 2020-2022 war, has been on life support and potentially even dead for several months, he said. That does not rule out diplomats and mediators attempting to return to it, given that it was effective in halting the earlier conflict.

Taylor identified several developments to watch: whether the Fano and TPLF push further south away from Tigray into the Amhara region and begin seizing significant towns; how the federal government responds, including whether it mobilises substantial additional troops; and whether the fighting spreads to other parts of Amhara and into Tigray itself.

He said the first hope for preventing a longer and more devastating war is that the federal government does not attempt a campaign entering Tigray. A round of fighting between the TPLF, the Fano and others in Amhara is likely inevitable, he added, but what happens next is critical.

Taylor urged diplomatic, international and regional powers with influence over the parties to press for restraint and a return to talks rather than fighting. He also flagged concern that the war could become regionalised, drawing in Eritrea, Ethiopia's great regional rival, and overlapping with the conflict raging in neighbouring Sudan.