Ethiopia's military pledges restraint as armed alliance threatens new civil war

Ethiopia's military leadership is publicly pledging to handle escalating tensions with restraint, even as armed groups across the country's north launch coordinated attacks that threaten to shatter a fragile four-year ceasefire and plunge the nation back into civil war.

Field Marshal Berhanu Jula, the army's chief of staff, made his first public statement on the deteriorating situation this week, framing the military's response to what he termed provocations from Tigray as measured and deliberate. Yet the facts on the ground tell a different story. Seven armed groups have formed a unified alliance—the Ethiopian Peoples' Forces Alliance for Survival—explicitly committed to toppling Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's government. Fighting has erupted across three regions: Tigray, where the conflict originated; Afar, where recent battles centered on the town of Abala; and Amhara, particularly in North Wollo along the Tigray border. The military reported killing 272 Tigrayan fighters and wounding 260 in a single counter-offensive, while the Tigray People's Liberation Front countered that the federal government had launched a full-scale assault involving infantry, mechanized units, and drones. A central committee member of the TPLF told journalists the situation had become "full war."

Jula's public posture of restraint masks deeper accusations and strategic calculations. He directly blamed Eritrea for funding and arming the rebel coalition, characterizing the alliance as dependent on external support to pose any real threat to the state. Eritrea, which shares a tense border with Ethiopia and fears landlocked Ethiopia might invade to gain Red Sea access, denied the charges. The accusation itself signals how regional powers are being drawn into what was supposed to be a contained conflict. Internet service was cut across northern Ethiopia on Friday—a move that came a day after the United Nations expressed alarm over reports of drone strikes targeting civilians in the region.

The immediate trigger for this new violence is the 2022 Pretoria Agreement, which ended a devastating two-year civil war that killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions. That ceasefire is now under severe strain. The agreement promised an interim administration for Tigray, fuel and cash flows to the region, and integration of Tigrayan forces into the national military structure. None of that materialized as promised. Instead, restrictions on fuel, services, and money to Tigray remained in place. Tigrayan representatives were excluded from national elections held since the ceasefire. What was meant to be temporary became permanent.

Alemayehu Weldemariam, a law professor at Indiana University, told Al Jazeera that the federal government bears primary responsibility for the agreement's collapse. The provisions for ending hostilities were "primarily sabotaged by the federal government itself," he said, pointing to the fuel and cash restrictions and the failure to establish the promised interim structures. The exclusion of Tigray from electoral processes deepened the breach. What began as a ceasefire has become a form of political isolation, and isolation has become a recruiting tool for armed groups promising change.

The timing adds another layer of complexity. Just weeks before this fighting intensified, Washington lifted sanctions on Ethiopia and Eritrea that had been tied to documented atrocities during the previous war, declaring that the "national emergency" justifying those penalties had expired. That decision removed one external pressure on the parties to maintain the peace. Meanwhile, Ethiopia's president addressed the United Nations General Assembly, portraying his country as a stabilizing force in the region while accusing unnamed external actors of interference—a framing that sits uneasily with the military's own accusations against Eritrea.

What makes this moment particularly dangerous is its scale and coordination. Previous flare-ups involved single groups or localized clashes. This alliance of seven armed groups, operating across multiple regions and explicitly unified around a political goal, represents the most serious challenge to the ceasefire since it was signed. The military's stated preference for "strategic calm" over large-scale confrontation suggests confidence in its ability to contain the fighting, but the spread of combat across Tigray, Afar, and Amhara, combined with reports of forced recruitment of young men and civilian casualties from drone strikes, indicates the conflict is already widening. Whether restraint can hold when seven armed groups are coordinated and committed to regime change remains the urgent question facing Ethiopia and the region.