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ADDIS ABABA: Ethiopia’s army this week regained management of territory beforehand claimed by Tigrayan rebels, a possible validation of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s resolution to affix troopers in conflict-hit areas.

But how the federal government scored its wins and what they imply for an eventual end result within the year-old warfare stay factors of fierce debate as preventing enters a brand new, unsure part.

Only a month in the past, the Tigray Individuals’s Liberation Entrance insurgent group appeared to be on the offensive, claiming to have captured Dessie and Kombolcha, cities on a key freeway headed towards the capital Addis Ababa.

They reportedly reached so far as Shewa Robit, round 220 kilometers (135 miles) northeast of Addis Ababa by highway.

However after Abiy introduced final week he would lead operations within the area, the federal government introduced a string of victories and the rebels acknowledged making changes to their technique.

State media has responded with triumphalist wall-to-wall protection.

“The enemy is destroyed, disintegrated,” the Ethiopian Broadcasting Company quoted Abiy as saying Thursday.

There’s little doubt the federal government can declare to have the “higher hand” in particular areas, stated Awet Weldemichael, a Horn of Africa safety knowledgeable at Queen’s College in Canada.

“Solely time will inform if these will be translated into [the] higher hand within the warfare,” he stated.

The warfare in northern Ethiopia broke out in November 2020 when Abiy despatched troops to topple the TPLF — a transfer he stated got here in response to TPLF assaults on federal military camps.

Although Abiy, the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize winner, promised a fast victory, by late June the TPLF had retaken most of Tigray, and it quickly launched offensives into neighboring Afar and Amhara areas.

The rebels’ march towards Addis sparked worldwide panic, with a bunch of embassies urging their residents to depart the nation as quickly as attainable.

All of the whereas, although, the precise nature of the TPLF advance was in dispute.

“I don’t know whether or not we must always name it an advance,” one Western safety official informed AFP in mid-November.

“There’s not an enormous column of tanks and armored automobiles driving down the highway towards Addis. It’s extra complicated than that. There are foot troopers going into the mountains, they shoot and encompass sure areas” however don’t appear to totally management cities and cities, the official stated.

The TPLF additionally by no means explicitly stated it wished to enter Addis Ababa, as a substitute merely declining to rule out such a transfer.

The most recent battlefield shifts unfolded swiftly.

The federal government first claimed cities in Afar, close to a important freeway bringing items to Addis Ababa, then on Wednesday it declared victory in Lalibela, a UNESCO World Heritage website that fell to the TPLF in August.

On Friday state media introduced that cities on the highway heading north towards Dessie and Kombolcha had been “liberated.”

The information may very well be an indication that authorities forces, in addition to many 1000’s of recent recruits who’ve enlisted in latest months, have extra struggle than they’ve gotten credit score for.

“I used to be fairly stunned by the newest counteroffensive by the federal government,” stated Mehdi Labzae, a sociologist who research land points and mobilization in Ethiopia.

“I’ve seen all of the individuals who had been mobilized … however the factor is I believed they weren’t educated and I believed they’d simply be destroyed.”

The African Union is attempting to dealer a cease-fire to avert additional bloodshed, although there was little progress to this point.

The TPLF insists it is going to have the benefit in no matter preventing is to come back.

“In battle, it’s recognized there can be changes and restricted retreat in addition to vital strikes ahead,” TPLF army boss Tadesse Worede stated in an interview that aired Friday.

“We determined that to scale back issues and vulnerabilities in some areas we had reached, to depart a few of these locations voluntarily.”

For Labzae, such statements recall the federal government’s announcement that it was withdrawing from most of Tigray in late June — a declare that elided army setbacks at the same time as TPLF fighters celebrated within the streets of the regional capital Mekele.

“They had been so shut [to Addis]. Why would they flip again now?” Labzae stated of the TPLF.

“It means there was one thing worrying them or one thing that didn’t look good for them.”

One chance, stated Awet of Queen’s College, is that the federal government’s superior air energy has turned the tide — at the very least for now.

“Drones are claimed to have performed a decisive function in energetic fight, the complete extent of which we’re but to search out out,” he stated.

“However to this point, it seems like they’ve helped halt Tigrayan counterattacks and advances.”