Ethiopia's army claims killing 272 Tigray fighters in Amhara counter-offensive

Ethiopia’s army says it has killed at least 272 fighters from the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) in a counter-offensive in the country’s northwest Amhara region.

The Ethiopian National Defence Force said on Thursday that another 260 Tigrayan fighters were wounded and several were captured.

“Government forces launched a counter-offensive that inflicted heavy personnel and equipment losses on the TPLF” after the group and its allies attacked several areas of North Wollo, a region of Amhara that borders Tigray, the army said in a statement on Facebook.

The intensification came days after TPLF and six other armed groups from across Ethiopia announced the formation of the Ethiopian Peoples’ Forces Alliance for Survival, which committed itself to removing Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government.

The coalition brought together the newly-formed Amhara Fano National Movement, the Oromo Liberation Army and other movements from the Somali, Afar and Benishangul-Gumuz regional states.

‘Full-blown war’

“We are in the situation of full-blown war now,” TPLF Vice President Amanuel Assefa told AFP news agency on Thursday.

He confirmed that Tigrayan forces were fighting alongside local armed groups in Afar and Amhara.

The alliance marks a striking realignment that had been almost a year in the making, bringing together armed groups with very different histories and grievances against the central government, including forces with histories of conflict among themselves.

In a statement issued as the fighting widened on Wednesday, the alliance said the federal government was attacking its forces on several fronts and presented their response as part of the broader struggle that had brought the coalition together.

Meanwhile, the escalation has disrupted air travel, as Tigrayan forces seized three local airports in the region.

Flights to Lalibela, a UNESCO-listed site in Amhara known for its medieval rock-hewn churches, were suspended on Thursday, according to Reuters news agency.

AFP also received reports of fighting around Lalibela, causing its airport to close. The area has often been targeted by the Fano, a local armed group that is now operating alongside the TPLF.

Wider regional rivalries

TPLF last went ⁠to war with the Ethiopian federal government in 2020, leading to a devastating two-year conflict that ended with a peace deal in 2022.

In his address at the UN General Assembly on Wednesday, Ethiopia’s President Taye Atske-Selassie Amde blamed the escalation on “the forces of destruction and mayhem” and “interference in our internal affairs by adversarial elements”.

He said Ethiopia had exercised “immense restraint” and made progress with its neighbours.

Analysts say the Tigray rebels have support from Eritrea, which fears landlocked Ethiopia is planning to invade its territory to gain access to the Red Sea.

The TPLF’s Assefa told AFP “we have no information about Eritrea’s plan”. Asked if they would request Eritrean intervention, he said: “Not yet.”

Ethiopia’s domestic conflicts are becoming harder to separate from wider rivalries in the Horn of Africa, particularly Addis Ababa’s deteriorating relationship with Eritrea and Sudan’s civil war.

Sudan’s army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan has visited Asmara twice since July for talks with Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki, while Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, reportedly visited Addis Ababa in late August.