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ETHIOPIA

Armed group says it has alliance with Tigray forces

Published:Thursday | August 12, 2021 | 12:08 AM
FILE - In this Friday, May 7, 2021 file photo, fighters loyal to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) walk along a street in the town of Hawzen, then-controlled by the group, in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia.
AP
FILE - In this Friday, May 7, 2021 file photo, fighters loyal to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) walk along a street in the town of Hawzen, then-controlled by the group, in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia.

NAIROBI (AP):

A militant leader in Ethiopia says his group has struck a military alliance with the Tigray forces now pressing toward the country’s capital, as the conflict that erupted in the Tigray region last year spreads into other parts of Africa’s second-most populous country.

“The only solution now is overthrowing this government militarily, speaking the language they want to be spoken to,” Oromo Liberation Army leader Kumsa Diriba, also known as Jaal Marroo, told The AP in an interview on Wednesday.

The alliance is a further sign of the broadening of the Tigray conflict that began in November after a political fallout between Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and the Tigray leaders who had dominated Ethiopia’s government for nearly three decades. Thousands have been killed in the nine-month war that has been marked by widespread allegations by ethnic Tigrayans of gang-rapes, man-made famine and mass expulsions by Ethiopian and allied forces.

The OLA leader said the agreement was reached a few weeks ago after the Tigray forces proposed it. “We have agreed on a level of understanding to cooperate against the same enemy, especially in military cooperation,” Diriba said. “It is underway.” They share battlefield information and fight in parallel, he said, and while they’re not fighting side by side, “there is a possibility it might happen”.

Talks are underway on a political alliance as well, he said, and asserted that other groups in Ethiopia are involved in similar discussions: “There’s going to be a grand coalition against (Abiy’s) regime.”

The alliance brings together the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, who had been front and centre in Ethiopia’s repressive government but were sidelined when Abiy took office in 2018, and the OLA, which last year broke away from the opposition party Oromo Liberation Front and seeks self-determination for the Oromo people. The Oromo are Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group.

Ethiopia’s government earlier this year declared both the TPLF and OLA terrorist organisations.