48 people were killed in the Menaka region in eastern Mali, following an attack launched by an ISIS group. One lawmaker told the Associated Press.
Musa Acharatumani, a Tuareg leader and member of the National Transitional Council, said that ISIS fighters in the Sahel state attacked the region on Sunday evening and into Monday morning, and the victims included children and the elderly.
Acharatumani added that the armed group attacked civilians, accusing them of revealing ISIS locations to the Malian army, which was launching a drone raid on the group.
A new Ethiopian tone of escalation towards Asmara emerged, about a month after the two countries made accusations regarding the confrontations in the Tigray region in the north of the country, which included threatening “grave risks and dire consequences” if support for “Ethiopia’s enemies” continued.
This warning, issued by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed about 3 weeks after the severing of relations, does not mean that war is imminent, but it is taken in light of several considerations, most notably deterrence, with the military confrontation scenario being one of 3 scenarios that include a war of attrition, or a settlement through mediators, according to experts on African affairs who spoke to Asharq Al-Awsat.
The battles that broke out on September 23 raised fears of the outbreak of a regional war, as Addis Ababa accused Asmara of supporting the rebels and deploying thousands of soldiers inside Ethiopian territory, before saying that it forced it to retreat after about two weeks after they were subjected to intense strikes, which was denied by Eritrea.
Eritrea gained its independence from Ethiopia in 1993, and the two countries fought a border war between 1998 and 2000. Relations between the two countries witnessed improvement for a short period after Abiy Ahmed came to power in 2018, but they deteriorated again, leading to the complete severing of relations at the beginning of this month due to the conflict in Tigray.
Ethiopian comparison
Comparing the period after independence in 1993 and before it, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said, “The Eritrean people lost everything they had during the period when Eritrea was part of Ethiopia, and their cities today have turned into what resemble simple villages.”
He pointed out in an interview broadcast by the Ethiopian Fana TV and the country’s official news agency on Monday evening that “the Eritrean regime has abandoned development and institution-building to become a tool in the hands of Ethiopia’s enemies,” stressing that “such actions harm neighborhood ties.”
Abiy Ahmed stressed that “the most useful option is good neighborliness and friendship,” warning that “ignoring calls for development partnership instead of being drawn into serving the enemies’ agendas entails serious risks and disastrous consequences,” according to the sources.
In an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat, African affairs expert at the National Center for Middle East Studies, Hussein Al-Behairi, believes that Abiy Ahmed’s warnings to Eritrea “reflect a qualitative shift in the nature of political disputes and Ethiopian threats to Eritrea.”
In an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat, the expert specializing in African affairs and co-founder of the “Somali Leadership and Global Affairs Academy concerned with diplomatic and political affairs,” Abdul Wali Jama Barre, believes that the threat does not necessarily mean that the decision to go to war has been taken, or that it is imminent. The statements can be understood through several considerations, most notably deterrence, as Ethiopia wants to show that supporting armed groups or violating its borders, according to its narrative, will have a cost.
Rising tension
Tensions have escalated between Addis Ababa and Asmara since the beginning of the Tigray escalation, and the Eritrean Ministry of Foreign Affairs published on its website, on Thursday, a letter that it said it had sent to the African Union Commission to demand “the restoration of Eritrea’s representation at its headquarters in Addis Ababa,” stressing that it had been “deprived of its membership rights, including representation and participation in the Union.”
She explained that this occurred following the Ethiopian government’s announcement in early October that 10 Eritrean diplomats residing at the Eritrean Embassy in Addis Ababa and its Permanent Mission to the African Union were considered persona non grata.
In light of these developments, Berri sets out possible scenarios for escalation if it continues. The first is the possibility of confrontation, and the second is the continuation of accusations, which prolongs the crisis and links it to the conflict in Sudan and the broader competition in the Red Sea region, unlike the third, which is containing the crisis through mediation from the African Union, the United Nations, and international partners.
Close to that proposal, Al-Behairi sets out several scenarios for the scene of Ethiopian escalation towards Eritrea. The first is “a direct confrontation in which Addis Ababa will rely on what it claims and promotes regarding the entry of Eritrean forces into Ethiopian territory, and talks about defending its national security, but in reality the main motivation for Ethiopia will be to reach the Eritrean port of Assab to secure and facilitate Ethiopia’s access to the sea.”
The second scenario, according to Al-Behairi, is “resorting to an indirect war through proxies with continued attacks by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front and the armed Fano militias in the Amhara region and elsewhere, provided that Ethiopia launches attacks on border areas with Eritrea without going beyond that.”
The third scenario, according to Al-Buhairi, includes the intervention of international and regional parties through mediation to prevent the outbreak of a direct war, stressing that the current indicators clearly indicate that the situation is heading toward further escalation between Ethiopia and Eritrea, especially by Addis Ababa, while not ruling out the scenario of Ethiopia carrying out some military operations in the shared border areas with Eritrea. To send a message to the Eritrean political system of its capabilities to penetrate and wage a direct war against Eritrea.
The Nigerian army announced on Tuesday that 103 ISIS West Africa fighters were killed in air strikes last week in the Lake Chad Basin region, in the far north-east of Nigeria, where the terrorist organization’s strongholds are located.
The army said that it carried out seven air strikes as part of the “Haden Kai Operation” to combat terrorism, during the period between October 10 and 18, targeting the strongholds of the terrorist organization in Borno and Adamawa states, according to what was announced by the spokesman for the Joint Task Force in the Northeast, Captain Muhammad Goni.
The military spokesman said, in a statement, that the strikes were carried out by army aviation, the drone regiment and the air wing, stressing that they targeted sites, hideouts and logistical facilities around Godembali, Badu and Mairari in Borno State, in addition to the Dosti Uku area in Adamawa State.
The spokesman added that the strikes resulted in the killing of two prominent leaders, noting that they were killed in a strike on an alternative headquarters for what he described as “the governor of southern Lake Chad.”
Targeting leaders
The army’s account confirms that a precise air strike targeted a secret headquarters located in the “Arena Waji” area, used by an ISIS leader called “Abu Salim,” to whom the organization assigned the emirate of southern Lake Chad, one of the most important areas in which the organization is expanding, and which includes areas of Nigeria, Chad, and Cameroon.
The army said that human intelligence information confirmed the killing of “Jundallah,” whom it described as the head of Abu Salim’s personal guard, and “Abu al-Kasa,” a member of the terrorist organization’s Shura Council, in addition to prominent fighters whom it did not name.
The strike destroyed the building, nine boat engines, and a number of motorcycles.
The Nigerian Air Force, through its spokesman, Ehiman Igudameh, issued a separate statement yesterday, Monday, in which he described “Jundallah” as a “key figure” in the structure of the security organization and its leadership council.
The Air Force or Army statement did not mention the fate of Abu Salim himself, and there is nothing to confirm his death or injury. No detailed information was available about any of the three. The army did not provide a biography of the so-called “Abu Salim” nor the real identity of “Jundallah” and “Abu Al-Kasa.”
In the same month, the army announced the killing of a commander in the Al-Mourabitoun battalion, which it describes as a specialized mobile combat force, in an air strike on Badou on October 10 that killed more than 40 fighters. The army did not reveal his name.
On July 22, the army announced the killing of Abu Salim al-Barnawi, whom it described as the chief propagandist of ISIS in West Africa, in a failed attack on a military base in Kukawa, Borno State, on July 12.
The Nigerian newspaper The Guardian said that the organization mourned him, and that he had previously led raids across the border with Cameroon and was then transferred to its media apparatus. It is not clear whether the “Abu Salim” mentioned in the latest strike is the same person whose death was announced in July or not.
American cooperation
The recent strikes against ISIS in West Africa come after nearly a year of escalating military cooperation between Abuja and Washington, which established the pattern of targeting the organization’s senior leaders and relying heavily on intelligence information.
Although the Nigerian statements about the October 10-18 raids did not mention American participation in them, a group of American soldiers and experts are still in Nigeria to support it in the war on terrorism, especially with regard to coordinating and gathering intelligence information.
Public cooperation began on December 25 and 26, 2025, when the United States carried out air strikes in Sokoto State, northwestern Nigeria, which it said targeted militants affiliated with ISIS, and that they were coordinated with the Nigerian government. The strikes targeted camps in the Tangaza region near the border with Niger, which is the area of activity of the Lakurawa group linked to ISIS Sahel.
