Ethiopian Armed Groups Alliance Targets Abiy

Seven armed and political groups in Ethiopia announced on Sunday that they have formed a new Ethiopian armed groups alliance aimed at removing Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's government from power, a major escalation in the country's overlapping conflicts. In a joint statement, the groups said they had established the Ethiopian Peoples' Forces Alliance for Survival, shortened to the Alliance for Survival, and plan to set up an inclusive transitional government, according to reporting from Al Jazeera. The announcement brings together factions that have often fought one another, a sign of how far opposition to the federal government has spread.

The factions joining forces

The new Ethiopian armed groups alliance includes the Amhara Fano National Movement, a coalition of Fano militia factions that has battled federal forces in the Amhara region since 2023. It also includes the Tigray People's Liberation Front, the party that dominated Ethiopian politics for nearly three decades before Abiy took office in 2018, and the Oromo Liberation Army, which has been fighting federal troops in Oromia since 2018. Four smaller organizations complete the lineup: the Ogaden National Liberation Front, the Afar Revolutionary Democratic Unity Front, the Benishangul Peoples' Liberation Movement and the Gumuz Peoples' Democratic Movement.

The coalition did not come together overnight. A source close to Fano told Al Jazeera that the groups had been discussing the alliance for about a year before Sunday's announcement. Jaal Marroo, the Oromo Liberation Army's military leader, said in comments to a local broadcaster earlier this month that the groups had met several times before settling on the final statement. Zemene Kassie, a Fano leader, first publicly indicated that deals had been reached in an interview with the Swiss newspaper Le Temps published on August 16. Ethiopian academic Eyob Tilahun described the move to Al Jazeera as a dialogue among groups acting in what they see as the public interest, adding that the allied forces believe they face a shared survival threat from the government.

Why the timing matters

The announcement follows weeks of renewed tension in the northern region of Tigray, where recent clashes marked one of the most serious breaches yet of the 2022 Pretoria peace deal and deepened fears of a return to full-scale war. In mid-July, the Tigray People's Liberation Front declared that agreement effectively dead. The Pretoria deal, signed in South Africa, ended the two-year war between the federal government and Tigray's forces that killed hundreds of thousands of people, but it left disputes over disarmament and the front's legal status unresolved.

The alliance's members accuse the federal government of imposing dictatorial rule that has pushed the country toward breakup, according to the joint statement. They say a transitional government guided by a charter would work to end the wars, protect rights and open a national dialogue. Abiy came to power in 2018 promising sweeping reforms, and he freed journalists, activists and other political prisoners while lifting bans on many political parties after taking office. His opponents and human rights activists say those gains have been reversed in recent years. The government had not publicly commented on the announcement as of Monday.

The coalition also reunites former battlefield enemies. Fano militias fought alongside federal forces against Tigrayan fighters during the war of 2020 to 2022, and Amhara and Tigray both claim the Western Tigray area, which Amhara nationalists have administered since the war ended. Their agreement to settle differences points to a shared assessment that the bigger threat now sits in Addis Ababa. The announcement lands just as world leaders gather in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, where conflicts across Africa and the Middle East are expected to dominate side-room diplomacy, as covered in GenZ Newz's guide to this week's General Assembly. Read Al Jazeera's full original reporting for more detail on the announcement.

The alliance brings together a geographically and ethnically diverse body of groups ranging from Tigray in the north to the Somali Region in the south, although some remain at loggerheads with other members over territory and other issues, reported by Reuters. The announcement follows reported skirmishes between federal and Tigrayan forces. In May, the Tigray People's Liberation Front reasserted control over the region's political administration in violation of the 2022 peace deal that ended the Tigray war, after accusing the federal government of failing to uphold the agreement. The Ethiopian military has carried out several drone strikes against Tigrayan forces in recent months, according to data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project, while the federal government said last week that nearly three hundred Tigrayan fighters had surrendered to it.

An adviser to Abiy had said last month that any such coalition would cause disruption but could not topple the federal government. Spokespeople for Abiy and the federal government did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Sunday's announcement. Ethiopia has also accused its neighbor and historic adversary Eritrea of supporting insurgent groups, including the Tigray People's Liberation Front and Fano; Eritrea has denied the claim. See Reuters' original reporting for the full account of the announcement.

The alliance has no shared military command structure that has been made public, and its members hold competing territorial claims that could resurface. The Ethiopian armed groups alliance gives the country's fragmented opposition a single political banner for the first time in years, and its evolution will be one to watch on GenZ Newz's War desk. If the groups can coordinate, federal forces could face pressure on several fronts at once. If they cannot, the announcement may fade into another chapter of Ethiopia's long cycle of conflict and negotiation.