The fragile truce that stopped one of the deadliest conflagrations of the 21st century in November 2022 has been blown apart. In the early hours of September 23, 2026, the armed forces of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) launched a wide and coordinated offensive in northern Ethiopia, taking control of three strategic regional airports —Mekelle, the Tigrayan capital, Axum, and Shire— forcing the immediate suspension of all commercial flights of the state airline Ethiopian Airlines and extending fighting to neighboring regions of Afar and Amhara. While Tigrayan authorities justify military operations as a "defensive war" against constant and increased federal drone attacks, the central government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019, describes the movement as a "total offensive" and absolute irresponsibility. In this new conflagration, the map of political loyalties has completely reversed: militias and factions that were fighting to the death on the battlefield just four years ago are now united under one banner against the central power in Addis Ababa.
A key geography for regional balance
Ethiopia is a demographic and geopolitical giant with over 120 million inhabitants, making it the second most populous country in Africa and the gravitational heart of the Horn of Africa. Its relief, dominated by the vast Ethiopian plateau cut north to south by the Great Rift Valley, creates both a natural barrier and a complex mosaic of microclimates and isolated ethnic groups. The nation is also the source of the Blue Nile, whose springs in Lake Tana contribute the vast majority of the flow that goes north, making water control a matter of vital strategic importance.
Since Eritrea gained independence in 1993, Ethiopia has become a landlocked state, without direct access to the sea. This geographical limitation has severely conditioned its foreign and trade policy, forcing the country to critically depend on the port infrastructure of Djibouti, through which almost 95% of its international trade and fuel supply transit. Ethiopia's stability is the pillar on which the delicate balance of the region rests; it borders Eritrea, Sudan, South Sudan, Kenya, Somalia, and Djibouti. Any fracture of its borders immediately triggers a domino effect of refugees, arms trafficking, and instability in vulnerable areas such as the Bab el-Mandeb strait and the Red Sea basin.
The roots of collapse: the failure of Pretoria
To understand the magnitude of the current crisis, it is necessary to go back to the outbreak of the civil war from 2020 to 2022. For almost three decades, from 1991 to 2018, the TPLF dominated the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front coalition with an iron fist, which governed the country after the fall of the Derg dictatorship. Despite representing an ethnic minority that makes up only 6% of the national population, the Tigrayan elite concentrated the political, military, and economic power of the federation. This hegemony was shattered with the rise to power of Abiy Ahmed in 2018, an Oromo politician who dissolved the old coalition, founded the Prosperity Party, and began a process of recentralization and displacement of Tigrayan leaders.
The growing frictions culminated in November 2020 in a devastating civil war that drew military intervention from neighboring Eritrea and Amhara militias on the federal side. That conflict left a tragic toll estimated at 600,000 dead —mainly due to famine and the humanitarian blockade— and more than five million internally displaced people. In November 2022, the Pretoria Peace Agreement, brokered by the African Union, formally ended hostilities, calling for a ceasefire, the gradual disarmament of the TPLF, and the restoration of federal authority.
However, the Pretoria Agreement contained the seeds of its own destruction by excluding two key actors from the negotiating tables: the Eritrean government and the militia forces from the Amhara region. The territories of western Tigray remained under Amhara military occupation, the disarmament process was incomplete, and nearly 750,000 Tigrayans were unable to return to their homes. The final trigger came in 2025 and 2026, when the federal government attempted to forcibly integrate regional security units into the national military structure and launched systematic drone attacks against alleged targets in Tigray. In May 2026, the hardline faction of the TPLF restored Debretsion Gebremichael as regional president, breaking all collaboration with the interim administration imposed from the capital.
X-ray of the rebel front and the federal forces
The map of the current conflict is marked by notable ideological and territorial complexity. The offensive of September 2026 was preceded by the announcement on September 20 of the formation of the Alliance of Forces of the Ethiopian Peoples for Survival, known popularly as the "Alliance of the 7 Armies". This heterogeneous coalition brings together insurgent organizations from six different regions with the explicit goal of overthrowing the administration of Abiy Ahmed and establishing a transitional government:
Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF): Led by Debretsion Gebremichael with Amanuel Assefa as vice president, it constitutes the core with the greatest military discipline and tactical experience on the front. It provides the seasoned Tigray Defense Forces (TDF) and operational control of the northern province. The formation has declared that the Pretoria pact is invalid following the breach of commitments by Addis Ababa.
Amhara National Movement Fano: Directed by Zemene Kassie —who acts as the spokesperson of the alliance—, it groups nationalist militias from the second most populous region in the country. Paradoxically, Fano fought alongside the federal government against Tigray in the 2020-2022 war. However, it rose up against Abiy Ahmed in 2023 when the administration sought to disarm regional forces. Its ideology combines the radical defense of Amhara identity with the claim of territorial disputes.
Oromo Liberation Army (OLA): Militarily led by Jaal Marroo, it has maintained an armed insurrection in Oromia, the region with the largest area and population in Ethiopia since 2018. It demands self-determination for the Oromo people and fights against Addis Ababa's recentralizing model.
Afar Revolutionary Democratic Unity Front (ARDUF / Ugugumo): Led by Ibrahim Osman Aliyu, it operates in the northeastern strip. Its participation is essential for the insurgent advance toward the border towns of Abala, Erebti, and Berhale, with the implicit goal of suffocating federal supply routes.
Supplementary Forces of the Alliance: The coalition also includes the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF, from the Somali region), the Benishangul Popular Liberation Movement, and the Gumuz People's Democratic Movement. The only unifying element among such disparate groups is their outright rejection of the prime minister's figure.
Against the insurgent alliance stands the federal government and the Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF), commanded by the chief of staff, Field Marshal Birhanu Jula. The Addis Ababa government maintains the support of local authorities in Afar, units of the federal police, and the moderate TPLF faction aligned with Getachew Reda. Although the armed forces have suffered initial setbacks on the ground and lost places like Sekota and Alamata —the latter partially recovered in recent counter-offensives—, the strategic trump card of the government is its undeniable air superiority. The systematic deployment of unmanned aerial vehicles (Turkish and Iranian-made combat drones) allows it to strike rebel infrastructure from a great distance, having reached the headquarters of the regional Tigray TV in Mekelle and causing significant casualties among enemy advances.
The geopolitical chess: international actors and interests at play
The Ethiopian conflict transcends national borders to become a chessboard where the interests of regional and international powers converge.
Eritrea represents the most dangerous factor of internationalization. Under the authoritarian command of President Isaias Afwerki, Asmara was the indispensable ally of Abiy Ahmed in the 2020-2022 war against its historical enemy, the TPLF. However, after being sidelined from the Pretoria truce and alarmed by Abiy Ahmed's recent claims to obtain a port on the Red Sea —which Asmara interprets as a direct threat to its sovereignty over Assab or Massawa—, relations between the two governments have completely broken down. Ethiopian officials accuse Eritrea of financing and coordinating the Alliance of the 7 Armies. For its part, the direct intervention of Eritrean troops with heavy artillery in the border areas of Afar seeks to isolate the Djibouti corridor to prevent resupply to Addis Ababa.
On the western flank, Sudan and Egypt view the Ethiopian deterioration through the lens of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) hydroelectric project. The Ethiopian chief of staff, Birhanu Jula, openly accused Cairo and Khartoum of supplying equipment and logistical support to the insurgents. While Sudanese Armed Forces General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan maintains close ties with Eritrea and Egypt, it is reported that Tigrayan fighters have used Sudanese territory as a logistical rear guard. The possibility that the Ethiopian civil war and the bloody internal Sudanese conflict may merge through cross-border military corridors poses an unprecedented threat to northeastern Africa.
On the other hand, the United Arab Emirates has emerged as the most steadfast financial and diplomatic supporter of Abiy Ahmed's regime, condemning the actions of the TPLF and ensuring the flow of military resources to the federal government. Globally, the United States, the European Union, and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) are watching the situation with concern, urging an immediate de-escalation to avoid compromising the security of commercial shipping routes in the Red Sea. China, for its part, being the main investor in infrastructure and creditor of Ethiopia, prioritizes the preservation of the stability of the Ethiopian central state and the security of its assets in the region.
The voice of the protagonists and the international clamor
The positions expressed by the leaders of the conflict reflect the impossibility of finding, in the short term, a point of diplomatic convergence. From the insurgent side, the vice president of the Tigray authorities, Amanuel Assefa, forcefully told international media the seriousness of the situation: “There are battles everywhere. We are now in a situation of total war.” Along similar lines, University of Oslo analyst Kjetil Tronvoll explained that the taking of airports and the penetration into Afar “reflects the strategy of cutting supply lines to Addis Ababa, aiming to suffocate the federal economy by disrupting the flow of fuel and imports arriving from Djibouti.”
From the government leadership, the response has left no room for negotiation. Getachew Reda, current advisor to the prime minister, harshly criticized the rebel action, stating that “the political-military leadership of the TPLF has taken irresponsibility to new heights by launching a total offensive and taking federal airports.” The military chief of staff, Birhanu Jula, reaffirmed the theory of external conspiracy: “We are fighting forces that are organized and allied to serve the interests of external powers. Neither Eritrea nor the TPLF can achieve anything on their own without the backing, support, and supply from Sudan, Egypt, and other powers.”
Meanwhile, international organizations insist on the dialogue route before the catastrophe becomes irreversible. The spokesman for the United Nations Secretary-General, Stéphane Dujarric, emphasized the organization's concern “about the indiscriminate use of drones and the attacks that cause devastating damage to the civilian population.” Likewise, Human Rights Watch researcher Laetitia Bader warned about the dramatic human consequences: “The region is already facing devastating human rights and humanitarian crises. We see that the risk to the population is spreading at a time when diplomatic attention and scrutiny on Ethiopia have diminished.”
A future on a tightrope
Ethiopia finds itself trapped in a historical trap derived from its own constitutional design. Ethnic federalism, conceived in the nineties to provide representation to the different nationalities of the country, has ended up institutionalizing divisions and arming regional identities. The Alliance of the 7 Armies has managed to channel heterogeneous discontent against the authoritarianism of Addis Ababa, but suffers from extreme internal fragility: the historical territorial disputes between Amharas and Tigrayans have not disappeared and threaten to fracture the insurgent front as soon as the common enemy retreats.
If the government of Abiy Ahmed manages to preserve the logistical corridor with Djibouti and assert its air power, the rebel offensive could be contained as a manageable regional security crisis. However, if the fronts consolidate, supply cuts materialize, and neighboring powers escalate their involvement, Ethiopia risks plunging into balkanization. In a Horn of Africa overwhelmed by humanitarian crises and violence, the fall of Ethiopia would represent the loss of the last anchor of regional stability, opening a chapter of unpredictable consequences for the entire African continent.
Adalberto Agozino holds a Ph.D. in Political Science, is an International Analyst, and a Lecturer at the University of Buenos Aires.
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