The New Lines Institute’s 120-page report on the Ethiopia’s “Tigray war” portrays the conflict as stemming from deep-seated tribal tensions or what it termed “entrenched competition between ethnic factions”. Published on June 4, 2024, the account singles out Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed as the catalyst for the conflict which broke out on November 4, 2020, purportedly in response to an attack on Ethiopian armed forces, though it swiftly dismisses this attack on the Northern Command as inconsequential in a footnote, citing Kjetil Tronvoll and Martin Plaut. Downplaying or omitting the fact the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) instigated the war by attacking army…