Sept 23 (Reuters) - Forces from the northern Ethiopian region of Tigray launched a major offensive against the federal government on Wednesday, a senior Ethiopian official said, shattering a four-year-old peace deal and threatening a wider regional conflict.
Tigray's leaders said in a statement they had entered a "defensive" war to counter aggression by the federal government.
A civil war that began in 2020 between the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) and federal forces resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths before the Pretoria Agreement was signed in November 2022.
The new hostilities follow months of growing animosity between the two sides, capped by Sunday's announcement that the TPLF had formed an alliance with six other armed groups from across Ethiopia aimed at overthrowing Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's government.
The TPLF-led regional administration said there had been an "intensification of the invasion conducted through various methods" by Abiy's government against the people of Tigray.
"The Tigray Forces have been instructed to counter the attack and have entered a defensive war," it said in a statement.
Getachew Reda, an adviser to Abiy and a former TPLF official, wrote on X that the TPLF had seized control of federally controlled airports in Tigray and launched an "all-out offensive" against government positions in the neighbouring regions of Afar and Amhara.
"The TPLF politico-military leadership has obviously taken irresponsibility to new heights," he said.
Ethiopian Airlines suspended flights to the region.
FEARS OF A WIDER WAR
Spokespeople for Abiy, the federal government and the TPLF did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Wednesday.
Regional diplomats and analysts have warned for months that a resumption of the conflict in Tigray could quickly escalate into a wider war, overlapping with fighting in neighbouring Sudan and further roiling the volatile Red Sea region.
A civil war that broke out in 2023 in Sudan has dragged in powerful states from outside the Horn of Africa and created the world's largest humanitarian crisis.
In the 2020-2022 Tigray war, Ethiopia's neighbour and historical adversary Eritrea backed the government militarily against the TPLF.
But relations between the two countries have soured since then. Abiy's spokesperson, Billene Seyoum, told Reuters on Monday that members of the newly announced alliance had been collaborating for a while with Eritrea's financial backing.
Eritrea has repeatedly denied accusations it supports Ethiopian armed groups. Its information minister declined to comment on Wednesday about the latest developments.
ARMED GROUPS SIDE WITH TIGRAYANS
In Afar, Tigrayan forces were fighting alongside a local armed group, and in Amhara, they were fighting alongside the Fano militia, according to a senior Ethiopian government official, a diplomatic source, a humanitarian source and another source with links to the TPLF and Fano.
Fano sided with the federal government during the 2020-2022 war, but rose up against it in 2023. It is a member of the new alliance with the TPLF.
In a statement on Wednesday, the regional government in Afar accused the TPLF of launching an invasion and said Afari forces would defend themselves in coordination with their allies.
The scale and intensity of the fighting were not clear. Jawar Mohammed, a political analyst and formerly a close ally of Abiy, said the federal government was limiting its engagement to try to prove to the international community that the TPLF was the instigator.
The 2020-2022 war stemmed from a breakdown in relations between the TPLF, which dominated Ethiopian politics for nearly three decades, and Abiy, whose appointment as prime minister in 2018 ended the TPLF’s dominance.
EACH SIDE ACCUSES THE OTHER OF PEACE DEAL VIOLATIONS
Following halting progress in implementing the Pretoria Agreement, each side has accused the other of violations in recent months.
In May, the TPLF seized control of the region's government from the interim administration established under the peace deal.
The Ethiopian military has carried out several drone strikes against Tigrayan forces, according to data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data project.
On Tuesday, the US government said it condemned a recent drone strike on a Catholic Relief Services humanitarian assistance convoy in Tigray and urged authorities to conduct a full investigation, without saying who was responsible for the attack.
According to a statement by the Catholic Eparchy of Adigrat in northern Tigray, the drone strike on Sunday destroyed a truck carrying food aid destined for internally displaced people.
The federal government has not commented on any of the reported strikes in Tigray.
(Reporting by Vincent Mumo Nzilani, Aaron Ross, Giulia Paravicini and Ammu Kannampilly; Editing by Ros Russell and Aidan Lewis)
