“They’ve begun an offensive around southern Tigray,” Addisalem Balema, a member of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front’s central committee, told Al Jazeera by phone from Mekelle on Wednesday morning, September 23, 2026. A day later he had a different word for it: “full war.”
The fighting that began in Tigray this week has already crossed into the neighbouring Afar and Amhara regions, pitting federal forces against several armed groups. Al Jazeera reported that lower-level clashes had been going on for weeks, with the federal government carrying out frequent drone strikes, but both sides had kept pulling back from the brink. This time they did not.
Two accounts of who started it
The Tigray Army said the government launched a “full-scale offensive” with infantry, mechanised units and drones, and that its own forces began counteroffensive operations. The government says the opposite. Getachew Reda, a former senior TPLF figure who now advises Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, accused the TPLF of launching the attack. The BBC reported that the government’s version is that Tigrayan forces struck first after taking control of airports in Tigray.
Air travel was hit at once. Ethiopian Airlines suspended flights across Tigray, and Al Jazeera cited local reports that Tigrayan forces had captured Abala, a district capital in Afar. In Tigray itself, the BBC said internet and phone services were cut, people were buying food in a panic, and residents who rely on digital payment apps could not reach their money after ATMs stopped working several months ago.
Residents of one town hit by drones told the BBC that two schools were struck. Local officials said troops had used those schools as bases during the earlier war. The BBC added that the circumstances of individual strikes are hard to verify independently.
A new alliance changes the map
The escalation came days after seven armed movements from across Ethiopia announced the Ethiopian Peoples’ Forces Alliance for Survival, which commits to removing Abiy’s government. Members include the TPLF, the Amhara Fano National Movement and the Oromo Liberation Army, alongside groups from Somali, Afar and Benishangul-Gumuz areas. Many of them have bitter histories with one another.
Balema said the TPLF joined former enemies because it did not want to be isolated again. “We don’t want a repeat of 2020 when we were encircled and alone,” he said. The government has accused Eritrea of backing the alliance. Eritrea has repeatedly denied supporting Ethiopian armed groups, and Balema denied any military support from Eritrea or Sudan. Analysts quoted by both outlets doubt the coalition will hold together once its members’ different aims come to the surface.
Why the peace deal frayed
The African Union brokered the Pretoria Agreement in November 2022, ending a two-year war in which, the AU mediator estimated, some 600,000 people died. The BBC listed four unresolved issues, two of them over western Tigray, which Amhara forces seized in the early days of that war. The TPLF wants it back. The government says a referendum should decide. The government also says the TPLF only handed over old weapons, while governance of Tigray remains disputed.
The AU has called for an immediate end to hostilities and a return to direct talks, and asked former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo to engage the parties urgently. The UN and the regional bloc IGAD made similar appeals. About three-quarters of a million people were already displaced in Tigray by the earlier war, according to UN migration data cited by Al Jazeera. Trust between Addis Ababa and Tigray, the BBC noted, is extremely low.
Sources
- Fighting widens across Ethiopia as Tigray clashes escalate | Conflict News | Al Jazeera
- Ethiopia fighting: Could the conflict between Tigray's TPLF and the army spread?
