Ethiopia’s crisis is usually presented as a collection of separate conflicts: Fano’s insurgency in Amhara, OLA violence in Oromia, tensions surrounding the TPLF, and a federal government confronting armed challenges across several fronts. But looking at each conflict exclusively through the ethnicity of the combatants risks missing the larger geopolitical picture. Ethiopians should be asking not simply why Amhara, Oromo and Tigrayan political forces continue fighting, but who benefits from an Ethiopia that remains divided, militarily exhausted and consumed by internal enemies. In this regard, Eritrea’s role deserves serious scrutiny.
THE ERITREA AND FANO CONNECTION
The relationship between Eritrea and Fano did not begin with the present confrontation between Addis Ababa and Asmara. Professor Mohammed Hassen publicly stated that Fano militias received combat training from Eritrean instructors during the Tigray war, when Fano, Eritrean forces and Ethiopia’s federal government shared a common enemy in the TPLF. Whatever one thinks of Fano today, that history matters because it establishes that relationships between Eritrean military structures and Amhara fighters existed before Fano turned its weapons against Abiy Ahmed’s government.
The strategic environment changed dramatically after the Pretoria Agreement ended the principal war between the Ethiopian government and the TPLF in November 2022. Eritrea had fought alongside Ethiopian federal forces but was not a signatory to the agreement. Relations between Addis Ababa and Asmara subsequently deteriorated, Fano launched an insurgency against the federal government, and political relationships that would have appeared almost unimaginable during the Tigray war began to emerge.
Those concerns became considerably more serious in 2026. Reuters reported that Ethiopian police said they had intercepted 56,000 rounds of ammunition sent from Eritrea to Fano rebels in Amhara. Weeks later, Reuters reported that Ethiopian Foreign Minister Gedion Timothewos accused Eritrea of supporting armed groups inside Ethiopia and conducting joint military exercises with them.
The significance is not that these reports establish that every Fano commander answers to Asmara. They do not. Fano is fragmented and should not be treated as one perfectly centralized organization. The significance is the emerging pattern: Eritrean training of Fano during the Tigray war, followed by Ethiopian authorities reporting ammunition shipments and Ethiopia’s foreign minister accusing Eritrea of military cooperation with armed organizations inside the country. Taken together, these developments make the relationship between Asmara and Ethiopian armed actors a serious national security question.
The picture becomes still more consequential when examined through recent conflict reporting. ACLED reports that its local sources described Eritrean forces fighting alongside Fano militias against Ethiopian security forces in Amhara in September 2025. According to those sources, the Eritrean forces wore Fano uniforms to obscure their identity. ACLED also reports that local sources claim Fano militias operating in western Oromia are trained by Eritrea.
These reports do not prove that every fighter carrying the Fano name is controlled by Eritrea. They do, however, make it increasingly difficult to treat the Eritrea question as irrelevant to Ethiopia’s internal armed conflicts.
TSIMDO AND THE CHANGING ALLIANCE
The picture becomes even more striking with Tsimdo. ACLED reports that over the past year there have been indications that the Eritrean government has been supporting the TPLF and other insurgent groups such as the Amhara Fano National Movement under the Tsimdo movement. ACLED describes a May 2026 gathering in Port Sudan as the first overt unified front involving regional state and nonstate actors explicitly aligned against the administration in Addis Ababa.
The political irony should not be lost on Ethiopians. During the Tigray war, Eritrea and Fano fought against the TPLF. Today, ACLED describes an unprecedented alignment between some Fano militias and the TPLF. Yesterday’s battlefield enemies are discovering areas of common interest because their political calculations have changed.
This is precisely why Ethiopia’s crisis cannot be understood exclusively through ethnicity. Governments and armed movements do not maintain permanent friendships or permanent enemies. They pursue interests. Yesterday’s enemy can become today’s tactical partner when both discover a new common opponent.
ACLED assesses that Fano militias aligned with the TPLF could provide operational support or launch diversionary operations that would force the Ethiopian National Defense Force to divide its resources across several fronts. It also warns that possible alignment among Fano militias, the TPLF and Eritrea creates a serious risk of renewed ethnic violence in western Oromia and could revitalize the fragmented OLA insurgency.
If armed movements that once fought one another can cooperate when their interests converge, ordinary Ethiopians should be extremely cautious when politicians, armed movements or social media accounts tell them that another Ethiopian ethnic community is their permanent enemy.
EGYPT, ERITREA AND THE REGIONAL CONTEST
Eritrea is not the only regional power whose strategic interests intersect with Ethiopia’s vulnerabilities. Egypt’s longstanding confrontation with Addis Ababa over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam gives Cairo an obvious strategic interest in Ethiopia’s regional power, while Eritrea faces its own concerns over Ethiopia’s pursuit of dependable Red Sea access and the extraordinary political sensitivity surrounding Assab.
This does not establish that Egypt and Eritrea jointly command Ethiopian insurgencies. That conclusion would require evidence of its own. But Ethiopia’s domestic conflicts are not occurring in a geopolitical vacuum. They are unfolding inside a wider contest over the Nile, the Red Sea, regional military power and the future balance of influence in the Horn of Africa. For Ethiopians, that distinction is essential. Strategic interest is not proof of operational control, but strategic interests tell investigators where questions should be asked.
WHY ASSAB MATTERS
The Red Sea question makes Eritrea’s position particularly important. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has repeatedly emphasized Ethiopia’s need for dependable maritime access. Assab remains sovereign Eritrean territory, but Ethiopia’s discussion of Red Sea access has transformed the issue into one of the most sensitive questions in relations between Addis Ababa and Asmara.
From Asmara’s perspective, the strategic calculation is not difficult to understand. A politically stable Ethiopia capable of concentrating the resources of its enormous population, economy and military toward its national objectives represents a fundamentally different regional power from an Ethiopia simultaneously consumed by conflicts in Amhara, Oromia and Tigray.
That strategic incentive does not establish that Eritrea created Ethiopia’s internal wars. But it gives Ethiopians every reason to believe that wars are being encouraged, exploited or prolonged by actors whose interests are served by an Ethiopia permanently preoccupied with itself.
FOLLOW THE ATROCITY FOOTAGE
The military dimension may only be part of the story. Ethiopia is simultaneously experiencing an information war in which photographs and videos of murdered civilians can rapidly become instruments of ethnic mobilization. The important question is therefore not simply what political accounts say after an atrocity, but how material apparently originating close to violence reaches particular online networks, who receives it first, and how quickly it is transformed into narratives encouraging Ethiopians to view another ethnic community as their existential enemy. The potentially significant issue is provenance.
Accounts including @neby_G, @zeyede1264 and @HOAAffairs should be examined as part of this wider information ecosystem wherever there is independently documented evidence of Eritrean self identification, pro Isaias political positioning, unusually early possession of original material, or repeated interaction with the same distribution networks. The same provenance test should be applied to material circulated by @Amharafirst88 and any other politically influential account regardless of which Ethiopian community it claims to represent.
Political sympathy toward Isaias Afwerki does not establish that an account is operated by the Eritrean government, just as displaying an Amhara identity online does not establish who actually operates an account. What matters is evidence connecting accounts, original files, sources and distribution networks.
If @neby_G, @zeyede1264, @HOAAffairs, or other Eritrean or pro Isaias accounts can be shown to repeatedly obtain original photographs or videos of atrocities first, particularly footage apparently recorded by perpetrators or people physically present at attack sites, Ethiopian investigators and independent researchers should determine exactly how that material reached them.
Being among the earliest accounts to publish such material does not by itself establish foreknowledge or complicity. But if the same accounts repeatedly receive original footage before journalists, authorities, victims’ families or the wider public, that pattern becomes a legitimate subject for forensic investigation.
The questions are straightforward but potentially consequential: Who held the camera? Who possessed the original file? Who received it next? Who uploaded it first? How quickly did politically aligned accounts obtain it? Do the same intermediaries repeatedly appear between people close to the violence and accounts using the resulting imagery for ethnic mobilization?
Investigators should reconstruct the distribution history across X, Telegram, Facebook and other platforms, preserve original files and metadata where available, compare timestamps, identify earlier copies and determine whether supposedly original posts were actually obtained from private channels or earlier sources.
If original atrocity material can repeatedly be traced from perpetrators or people physically close to attacks to accounts demonstrably connected to Eritrean political networks, the implications would be considerably more serious than ordinary social media propaganda. Investigators would then have grounds to determine whether those accounts were simply exploiting material supplied by Ethiopian combatants or whether deeper relationships involving communications, financing, propaganda coordination or operational contacts existed.
The most serious claim, that Eritrean operatives ordered atrocities, instructed perpetrators to record them and subsequently received the footage for propaganda purposes, requires a much higher evidentiary threshold. Authenticated communications, original device evidence, witness testimony, financial relationships or operational instructions would be necessary to establish such a chain. That is exactly why the investigation should follow the evidence rather than begin with the conclusion.
TURNING ATROCITIES INTO ETHNIC WAR
This information pipeline matters because atrocity propaganda can become part of the conflict itself. A horrifying photograph appears, political accounts identify the victims ethnically, responsibility for the crime is generalized from particular perpetrators to an entire population, anger spreads, retaliation follows, another community suffers, another video appears, and another armed organization finds recruits.
The rhetoric surrounding “Oromuma” illustrates the danger. There are legitimate political disputes surrounding Ethiopia’s federal system and serious reports of atrocities against Amhara civilians that deserve investigation and accountability, just as Oromo, Tigrayan and other Ethiopian civilians have suffered violence. But there is an enormous difference between demanding justice for Amhara victims and convincing Amhara that Oromo people collectively constitute their enemy.
The situation in western Oromia demonstrates how much more complicated the battlefield really is. ACLED reports that increasing Fano activity has been accompanied by attacks targeting Oromo civilians, while Ethiopian security forces and OLA elements have also conducted crackdowns on Amhara civilians accused of being Fano or supporting the movement.
This is how the cycle feeds itself. Oromo civilians are killed and Oromo communities become frightened of Fano. Amhara civilians are targeted because they are suspected of supporting Fano and Amhara communities become frightened of Oromo armed actors or government forces. Each atrocity becomes evidence for the next ethnic narrative, while the civilians paying the price often have no control over the armed organizations claiming to fight in their name. ACLED warns that this dynamic risks reigniting the inter-communal animosities and cyclical atrocities that have affected the Amhara and Oromia borderlands for years.
For an outside actor seeking a weaker Ethiopia, the most effective strategy would not necessarily be convincing Ethiopians to support Eritrea, Egypt or another foreign government. It would be much simpler to convince Amhara that Oromo are their enemy, Oromo that Amhara are their enemy, Tigrayans that another war is unavoidable, and every Ethiopian community that its greatest threat comes from another Ethiopian community. Once Ethiopians accept that premise, Ethiopia does not need a foreign army to destroy it.
BUT THE REGIONAL PROXY WAR CUTS BOTH WAYS
There is another fact Ethiopians should confront because serious analysis cannot examine only one side of the regional competition. ACLED also reports that Addis Ababa has been supporting or hosting Eritrean opposition actors seeking to remove the government of Isaias Afwerki and describes the wider Horn as increasingly vulnerable to proxy warfare in which neighboring governments support one another’s opponents.
That does not erase questions about Eritrean involvement with Ethiopian armed movements. It demonstrates something larger and more dangerous: the Horn is developing a political environment in which governments and armed groups increasingly see their neighbors’ internal opponents as strategic instruments.
Ethiopia therefore has an interest not merely in defeating one proxy network but in breaking the logic of proxy warfare itself. And that requires reducing the domestic grievances that give outside powers opportunities to intervene.
ETHIOPIANS ARE BEGINNING TO WAKE UP
This is where another part of Ethiopia’s story becomes important, because while armed movements and their supporters continue trying to convince Ethiopians that permanent conflict is inevitable, some of the people who once carried weapons are putting them down and choosing dialogue instead.
Recent reporting from West Gojam indicates 418 armed fighters accepted the government’s peace offer during the previous year. Local officials reported that former fighters completed rehabilitation programs and began returning to civilian life.
That development should not be exaggerated into a claim that the entire Fano insurgency has ended. It has not. Armed confrontation continues in parts of Amhara, and ACLED continues to describe Fano activity as an important component of Ethiopia’s security crisis.
But something politically significant is happening.
The movement away from the battlefield is not limited to surrendering weapons. The Ethiopian National Dialogue Commission brought 200 former members of armed groups from Amhara into structured dialogue engagements. The Commission reported that participants discussed the circumstances that had led them into armed struggle, presented political concerns and were encouraged to persuade those still carrying weapons to choose dialogue.
That is what political transformation looks like. A man who yesterday believed his political grievance could only be expressed through a rifle can today place that same grievance before other Ethiopians as a political agenda. He does not have to abandon his Amhara identity. He does not have to support Abiy Ahmed. He does not have to join the Prosperity Party. He does not even have to stop criticizing the federal government. He only has to accept that another Ethiopian does not need to die for his argument to be heard.
FROM THE GUN TO POLITICAL DIALOGUE
The importance of former fighters participating in political dialogue goes far beyond the individuals involved. Ethiopia has spent decades normalizing the idea that serious political grievances eventually require an armed movement. A dispute becomes a rebellion. The rebellion produces a government military response. Civilians become trapped between the two sides. Atrocities generate anger. Anger produces recruits. The next generation inherits the previous generation’s unfinished war.
Former combatants entering dialogue challenge that entire political tradition. They demonstrate that putting down a rifle does not require surrendering a political belief. A former Fano fighter can continue demanding answers about Amhara security. An Oromo opposition activist can continue challenging federal or regional policy. A Tigrayan can continue arguing about the Pretoria Agreement and the future of Tigray. A government supporter can defend the federal government’s position.
The essential transformation is that none of them needs to kill the other to make the argument. That principle is more important than whether every participant supports the government.
THE REAL THREAT TO THE POLITICS OF PERMANENT WAR
If Ethiopia’s armed conflicts are sustained partly by the belief that political grievances can only be resolved through force, then every fighter who leaves the battlefield creates a problem for those who benefit from permanent instability.
A surrendered rifle is not merely one fewer weapon, t is one fewer Ethiopian available to somebody else’s war. A former combatant entering the National Dialogue is not simply another conference participant. He represents the possibility that thousands of others can make the same transition. And that may ultimately be more threatening to the politics of permanent instability than another military offensive. Because the greatest threat to anyone who benefits from a fragmented Ethiopia is not another Ethiopian armed movement. It is Ethiopians deciding that they no longer need armed movements to speak for them.
ETHIOPIA IS WAKING UP
That is why foreign involvement should continue to be investigated rigorously. Follow the weapons. Follow the ammunition. Follow the trainers. Follow the money, meetings and communications. Follow the original atrocity photographs and videos. Establish who recorded them, who received them first and whether the same politically connected accounts repeatedly appear near the beginning of the distribution chain.
If the evidence leads nowhere, say so. If it leads to Ethiopian political or armed actors, expose them. If credible evidence leads to Asmara, Cairo or another foreign capital, expose every link. But Ethiopians should also recognize what is beginning to happen inside their own country.
Every fighter who puts down his weapon weakens the politics of permanent war. Every former Fano fighter or other combatant who takes his grievance into dialogue rather than another battlefield demonstrates that political disagreement does not require another funeral. Every Amhara who refuses to hate Oromo, every Oromo who refuses to treat Amhara collectively as Fano, and every Ethiopian who asks for evidence before spreading another atrocity narrative makes manipulation more difficult.
An Oromo civilian is not OLA because he is Oromo. An Amhara civilian is not Fano because she is Amhara. A Tigrayan civilian does not answer for the TPLF because he is Tigrayan. Ordinary Eritreans should not automatically be equated with the government of Isaias Afwerki.
Perhaps this is the political change Ethiopia has been waiting for. Not another armed movement. Not another ethnic mobilization. Not another generation going to the mountains.
But Ethiopians finally recognizing that the person speaking another language, living in another region or carrying another historical grievance is still an Ethiopian with whom a political settlement must eventually be reached.
The choice facing those who remain under arms is therefore becoming clearer: bring your grievances to the table, defend your ideas before other Ethiopians and compete politically, or explain why another Ethiopian must die before your argument can be heard. Ethiopia has spent enough generations testing the politics of the gun.
Ethiopians are beginning to wake up. Rifles are beginning to come down. Former fighters are beginning to sit at the table. The remaining armed groups should understand the message: Ethiopia’s future must be decided by Ethiopians talking to one another, not by those who benefit from keeping them at war.
