Assab

that briefly paused and is now kicked off again.

For the last couple of years, he's been promising with increasing vociferousness to invade Eritrea and finally take that Red Sea port of Assab that he wants.

This guy, Abiy Ahmed, he's someone that's got to be contended with.

What does it take to stop that conflagration? Forget the UAE and Saudi, it's got its own internal dynamics.

Additionally, major TDF or Fano offensives could risk cutting off ENDF frontlines if Ethiopian forces were to launch an incursion into Eritrea.

Alleged Ethiopian military build-ups in Afar along the A1P7 highway towards Assab remain unconfirmed.

Fighting between the Ethiopian National Defence Forces and the Eritrean Defence Forces will likely centre on northern Tigray and the border with southern Eritrea in the short to medium term.

However, the Afar-Assab axis presents a realistic possibility of a second front, particularly if Addis Ababa assesses that seizing Assab port is a viable military objective.

Statements about the expansion of Ethiopia's navy are likely intended to signal to Asmara that a military threat to Assab remains.

This would likely strengthen Ethiopia's negotiating position in potential talks.

Elsewhere in East Africa, higher fuel prices and transport fares are adding to public dissatisfaction in Kenya, with further demonstrations possible in the coming weeks.

So they are now, as I believe, they have some facilities in Djibouti, but that's not satisfactory.

They want to have Assab probably as the place to have it in, or Massawa, which is Eritrea's major port directly below the plateau.

So those are two options.

but they can't find a way of getting it.

Locals report looting, closure of most shops, and most essential foods having run out.

And again, in a different part, right along the Eritrean-Ethiopian border, really close to the Djibouti border, so the part with the smallest distance to the sea between the Ethiopian border and the Red Sea with, you know, small amounts of Eritrea, and between near the port of Assab, which historically was controlled by Ethiopia, And it says here, a major buildup of Ethiopian national defense forces around Bure and northern Afar region along Ethiopia's border with Eritrea.

On the opposite side, Eritrea is also amassing troops.

No clashes have yet occurred on this axis.

Food had been prepared for them.

To prepare for the long flight across Arabia, it was a distance equal to the one she had flown over the South Atlantic, Amelia now flew the Electra 335 miles south and east down the coast of Eritrea to Assab, where the runways were longer and where a large number of gasoline drums had been stored for her.

The next morning, and well before daybreak, from across the Red Sea in Arabia, they left Assab.

It was June 15th.

Their destination, Karachi, India, lay 1,920 miles away.

It was jammed.

AE quickly analyzed the possibilities of a forced landing.

Neither the Arabian Sea nor desert was inviting, nor did she want to try to make it back to Assab.

When Eritrea became independent, Ethiopia lost its coastline.

And Ethiopia does, of course, commercially get access to the sea, uh, largely through Djibouti, but it seems increasingly as though the Ethiopians are re- intent on regaining access to the Port of Assab, an Eritrean port.

And so the, there is this concern that they will pursue this access to the sea militarily by invading Eritrea, essentially, and taking control of Assab.

So that is the other sort of internal dynamic driving the current tension.

Looking at the region, it seems that there's one conflict after another, whether it's the Houthis on the coast of the Red Sea with the Saudis, Ethiopia, as we've mentioned, a civil war in Sudan.

A substantial ENDF convoy, including tanks and heavy weaponry, was observed advancing towards the town overnight between October 12 and 13.

Unverified reports also claim that the ENDF has begun a military build-up in Bure, Bododa and Elidar in the Afar region, along the A1 highway towards Assab.

The latest reports of Eritrean incursions claim that Eritrean defence forces entered Tigray around October 3rd, advancing into Adigrat before moving south along the A2 highway.

Between October 7th and 8th, they reportedly retreated north of Adigrat under heavy pressure from Ethiopian drones.

There is a realistic possibility that the ENDF build-up at Zalambessa is intended to fix Eritrean forces on the northern front, limiting their ability to reinforce the Eritrea-afar border.

Access to the Red Sea remains a key objective of the Abiy government, and it is highly likely that Addis Ababa would use a direct conflict with Eritrea to launch an incursion into Eritrea's southern Red Sea province along the A1-P7 highway.

While reports of an ENDF build-up in Afar could be disinformation, confirmation of such a build-up would likely suggest that Ethiopia's objective is to gain control of Assab port.

Evidence of a sustained advance towards the port would almost certainly strengthen this assessment.