Addis Ababa: Ethiopia’s military this week regained control of territory previously claimed by Tigreyan rebels, in a possible recognition of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s decision to join forces in conflict-hit areas.
Yet how the government achieved its victories and what they mean for the end result in the years-old war remain points of fierce debate as the fighting enters a new, uncertain phase.
Just a month earlier, the Tigre People’s Liberation Front rebel group appeared on the offensive, claiming it had captured Desi and Kombolcha on a major highway leading to the capital, Addis Ababa.
They reportedly reached Sheva Robit, about 220 kilometers (135 mi) northeast of Addis Ababa, by road.
But last week Abiy announced he would lead operations in the region, the government declared several victories and the rebels admitted to adjusting their strategy.
State media has responded with triumphant wall-to-wall coverage.
“The enemy is destroyed, shattered,” Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation was quoted as saying by Abiy on Thursday.
There is no doubt that the government can claim to have the “upper hand” in specific areas, said Avett Veldemichel, a security expert at the Horn of Africa at Queen’s University in Canada.
“Only time will tell whether these can be translated [the] upper hand in the war,” he said.
War in northern Ethiopia broke out in November 2020 when Abiy sent troops to topple the TPLF – a move he said came in response to the TPLF’s attacks on federal army camps.
Although 2019 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Abiy promised a quick victory, by the end of June the TPLF had recaptured most of the tigre, and it soon launched invasions into neighboring Afar and Amhara regions.
The rebels’ march towards Addis sparked international panic, with a host of embassies urging their citizens to leave the country as soon as possible.
However, at all times, the exact nature of the TPLF advance was in dispute.
“I don’t know whether we should call it an advance,” a Western security official told AFP in mid-November.
“There isn’t a huge column of tanks and armored vehicles coming down the road to Addis. It’s much more complicated than that. The infantrymen are going into the mountains, they shoot down some areas and besieged,” the officer said. but do not fully control cities and towns.
The TPLF also never explicitly stated that it wanted to enter Addis Ababa, instead refusing to deny such a move.
The latest Battlefield changes came out fast.
The government first claimed towns in Afar near an important highway bringing goods to Addis Ababa, then on Wednesday it declared victory at Lalibela, a UNESCO World Heritage site that fell to the TPLF in August.
On Friday state media announced that towns on the northbound road towards Desi and Kombolcha had been “liberated”.
The news could be a sign that government forces as well as the thousands of new recruits who have been recruited in recent months have more fighting to do than they deserve.
“I was quite surprised by the latest response by the government,” said Mehdi Labja, a sociologist who studies land issues and mobilization in Ethiopia.
“I’ve seen all the people who rallied … but the thing is, I thought they weren’t trained and I thought they would perish.”
The African Union is trying to broker a ceasefire to prevent further bloodshed, although little progress has been made so far.
TPLF says it will have an advantage in any fight to come.
“In the fight, it is known that there will be significant steps forward, along with adjustments and limited withdrawals,” TPLF military boss Tadese Voorde said in an interview aired on Friday.
“We decided to leave those places voluntarily to reduce problems and vulnerabilities in certain areas.”
For Labaze, such statements recall the government’s announcement that it was withdrawing from most of the Tigre in late June – a claim that set off a military setback, even as the TPLF Fighters celebrated in the streets of the regional capital, Mekele.
“they were so close” [to Addis], Why would they come back now?” LabJ said about TPLF.
“It means they were worrying about something or something that didn’t look good to them.”
One possibility, said Queen’s University’s Awett, is that the government’s superior wind power may have turned the tide – at least for now.
“Drones claim to play a decisive role in active combat, the full extent of which is yet to be known,” he said.
“But so far, it appears that they have helped stop the Tigris counterattacks and advances.”
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