Ethiopia’s federal military has recaptured the main airport in the capital of the northern Tigray region, three sources said on Saturday, dealing a major setback to an \u200bopposition alliance in its stronghold.<\/p>\n
Clashes pitting a rebel alliance led by Tigray’s ruling party \u200cagainst the government and its allied forces broke out in northern Ethiopia last week, in the most serious escalation of violence since a 2020-2022 civil war.<\/p>\n
The fighting has stoked fears that it could escalate into a wider regional conflict, potentially drawing in neighbouring \u200bcountries in the Horn of Africa and the Gulf.<\/p>\n
In Washington, State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott \u200bsaid the United States strongly urged Ethiopia and Eritrea to “exercise maximum restraint and return \u2060to dialogue and cooperation as agreed in their 2018 peace framework.”<\/p>\n
“The Horn of Africa cannot sustain another \u200bmilitary conflict and humanitarian crisis,” Pigott said. “A conflict jeopardizes ongoing U.S. collaboration on shared interests with both countries.”<\/p>\n
The \u200bfederal government in Addis Ababa severed diplomatic ties with Eritrea this week, accusing it of supporting the rebel alliance alongside Sudan and Egypt. The three countries deny this.<\/p>\n
Troops from the Ethiopian National Defence Forces had regained control of Alula Aba \u200bNega Airport in Tigray’s capital Mekelle, one source with knowledge of events in the city and a \u200bhumanitarian source told Reuters.<\/p>\n
A third source, a Mekelle resident who asked not to be named for security reasons, confirmed the \u200ctaking of \u2060the airport by government forces and added they could hear gunfire outside the city centre.<\/p>\n
This source said they had seen some Tigrayan Defence Force fighters abandoning their posts and heading home, and that there was looting of government facilities taking place in the city.<\/p>\n
Reuters could not immediately verify the assertions and the region’s \u200bruling party, the Tigray \u200bPeople’s Liberation Front (TPLF), could \u2060not be immediately reached for comment. A source close to the TPLF however told Reuters the city was encircled by government troops and allied militias.<\/p>\n
Mekelle’s airport, which \u200bis around 10 km (6 miles) from the centre of the city, was \u200bone of three \u2060airports in the region that were seized by the opposition forces at the start of the fighting on September 23.<\/p>\n
The taking of Mekelle by government forces would be a major setback for the opposition alliance, although analysts say \u2060it \u200bwould be unlikely to end the conflict.<\/p>\n
In 2020, federal forces captured \u200bMekelle within the first month of the two year war before the TPLF reclaimed it seven months later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ethiopia’s federal military has recaptured the main airport in the capital of the northern Tigray region, three sources said on Saturday, dealing a major setback to an \u200bopposition alliance in its stronghold. Clashes pitting a rebel alliance led by Tigray’s ruling party \u200cagainst the government and its allied forces broke out in northern Ethiopia last […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":22195,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":4,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,2362,1129],"tags":[114,534],"class_list":["post-22194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-africa","category-featured","category-security","tag-ethiopia","tag-tigray"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22194"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22196,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22194\/revisions\/22196"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}