Fano

While the government forces have made significant gains in the Tigray region, they have also lost ground in Amhara.

Amhara War Updates, an organization with close ties to the Fano, reported that the Fano had defeated the Ethiopian army in North Mwolo Zone, capturing 40 soldiers in the process.

The account also claimed that Addis Ababa had withdrawn from multiple locations in the West Guardian Zone of the Amhara region between the 25th and 26th of September.

Now, we obviously have to take any claim that Amhara War Updates makes with a fistful of salt because of their ties to the Fado.

The TLDR version, then, is that after the Tigray War, Abiy Ahmed flipped off all of his former friends, which, with the benefit of hindsight, was not the wisest of political moves.

Especially as all of these newly made enemies soon realized that they could come together to eliminate their common foe.

On Sunday, the 20th of September this year, Fano leader Zemini Kasi read a statement on Tigray TV announcing the formation of the Ethiopian People's Forces Alliance for Survival, a coalition of seven groups with one mission.

the removal of Abiy Ahmed from office.

And I think that is painting a bit of a picture about how it's a kind of us versus them situation in the most simplistic form, but that's not exactly the situation, is it? So could we unpick where the alliance is up to now and what it actually looks like following the reports, I think that were over a week ago now, about this new alliance that involved seven different groups coming together against the government.

So out of the seven groups, only three of them, TPLF, Oguguma, the Afar Force, and the AFNM, one of the Fano militias, are currently involved in armed clashes with the government forces in northern Ethiopia.

The others are quiet.

They are even releasing, for example, OLA with a spokesperson's interview on BBC.

But I also think that those in Amhara and those even tangentially involved OLA groups, as well as the Afaris, will have a very strong price to pay for their association with the TPLF when this is over.

Again, I think that it is pretty damning to the populations of all of those regions that they would associate with a group that has often and loudly proclaimed their dominance or their significance before these other groups and what they wanted in their regions.

And this is also demonstrated on social media because the Ethiopian people are very active on social media, and you can see that people are against OLA, like people who supported OLA are against OLA for deciding to join the alliance and to work with TPLF and Fano militias.

It's like they were testing the water, and I think they have tested it now and have seen what their supporters are saying.

That's right, Francois.

And the Amhara region has been a battleground for the last three years for a conflict between the Amhara Fano rebels and the federal forces there, let alone this latest escalation that we've seen over the last couple of weeks.

But that, as you mentioned, did not stop the Senegalese men's national football team from traveling there on Tuesday afternoon to play against Ethiopia.

I spoke to a source in Bayadar, the capital of Amhara, where that football match took place, who told me that he heard loud explosions on both the day before the match, so Monday, and also during the day of the match on Tuesday.