Dahsas
The war·Explainer

Who is actually fighting Abiy Ahmed?

Seven armed and political groups announced an alliance on 20 September. Three weeks later, only one of them has been publicly named. That gap matters, because this is the body being credited with drone attacks on the capital.

By Dahsas Updated

Lalibela, Amhara. The fighting spread from Tigray into Amhara and Afar. File photo, not an image of any event described here.
Lalibela, Amhara. The fighting spread from Tigray into Amhara and Afar. File photo, not an image of any event described here.Thomas Fuhrmann / Wikimedia Commons

**Update, 5 October.** A second member has been named. RFI reports that the alliance fighting federal forces includes the Amhara Fano National Movement alongside the TPLF. That takes the count of publicly identified members from one to two, of seven. Five remain unnamed, and the caution below still applies. The identification is notable for a second reason: Fano fought *against* the TPLF, alongside federal and Eritrean forces, in the last war.

On 20 September, seven armed and political groups announced an alliance. Their stated aim is to remove Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's administration and replace it with an inclusive transitional government.

The Tigray People's Liberation Front leads it. That is the one thing about the alliance's membership that is publicly established.

Six groups nobody has named

We have searched for a source naming the other six and have not found one. Al Jazeera, reporting the alliance with Reuters, identifies only the TPLF. We have not located the announcement itself.

This is not a small gap. The alliance is the body credited with drone attacks on Addis Ababa, Bishoftu, Kombolcha and Bahir Dar. Attribution to an organisation whose membership is unknown is attribution to a name, not to an actor.

A second name, which may or may not be the same thing

A group called the Ethiopian Peoples' Forces Alliance for Survival appears in this story in a way we have not been able to resolve.

Al Jazeera reports that a source linked to the Alliance for Survival claimed the Addis Ababa drone strikes, and attributes that to Reuters. But neither version of the Reuters report we hold names any group — both say only "a source linked to the opposition alliance". Ethiopia Observer traces the same claim to social media posts instead.

ACLED separately names the Alliance for Survival for the Kombolcha and Bahir Dar strikes.

So: either the Alliance for Survival is one of the seven and some outlets know more than they are showing, or a name has been attached to a claim somewhere along the chain and then repeated. We cannot currently tell which.

What the other side looks like

The government's side is not a single actor either. Pro-government Tigrayan militias, chiefly the Tigray Peace Forces, are fighting alongside federal troops against the TPLF.

Al Jazeera's Ethiopia bureau chief notes that the federal army is clearly providing the TPF with full support, and draws the obvious implication: the conflict is increasingly an internal struggle among Tigrayans.

Our bottom line

Treat "the alliance" with care when you read it, including on this site. It is a real body that made a dated announcement, but six of its seven members have never been publicly identified, and at least one attribution of responsibility has been attached to a name that the underlying wire report does not use. When we say the alliance claimed something, we mean someone described as linked to it said so to a journalist. That is weaker than it sounds.

On the sourcing. We have not seen the alliance's founding announcement, only outlets' summaries of it. The discrepancy over the Alliance for Survival naming is unresolved between Al Jazeera, Reuters and Ethiopia Observer.

What we checked ourselves

Each of these is a record in our ledger, with its sources, the evidence we gathered and what would change our mind.

What we read

  1. RFI, via allAfricaEthiopia's new rebel war redraws alliances across the Horn of Africarelaying another outletNames the Amhara Fano National Movement as part of the alliance. Added on 5 October, after publication.Read it
  2. Al Jazeera, with ReutersEthiopian gov't-aligned group claims close to full control of Tigray regionRead it
  3. Al JazeeraBlasts heard in Addis Ababa as Ethiopia conflict widens in the northrelaying another outletRead it
  4. Ethiopia ObserverExplosions heard overnight in AddisRead it
  5. ACLEDBlasts in Addis Ababa signal dangerous new phase in Ethiopia's conflictRead it

All stories