Africa File Special Edition: Tigray Threatens to Spark the Next Eritrean-Ethiopian War and Plunge the Horn of Africa into Crisis
Authors: Liam Karr and Kathryn Tyson
Contributor: John Reece and Nick Markiewicz
Data Cutoff: March 13, 2025, at 10 a.m.
Editor's Note: The Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute publishes these updates with support from the Institute for the Study of War.
The Africa File provides regular analysis and assessments of major developments regarding state and nonstate actors’ activities in Africa that undermine regional stability and threaten US personnel and interests.
Key Takeaway: A violent power struggle in northern Ethiopia’s Tigray region risks sparking another civil war in Ethiopia, which could, in turn, expand quickly to include Eritrea. Renewed conflict in Tigray or between Ethiopia and Eritrea would generate an economic, humanitarian, and security crisis that would have reverberations across Africa and even into Europe. External powers, such as Iran and Russia, have demonstrated interest in exploiting conflict in the region to consolidate their own influence around the Red Sea. Salafi-jihadi groups would benefit from such crises as well, given that it would produce a wall of instability across Africa, stretching from the Sahel to the Horn of Africa. A war would exacerbate the refugee crisis in the region and increase migration flows to Europe and the Gulf states.
Tigrayan forces aligned with the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF) leader attacked the Tigray Interim Administration (TIA) on March 11, which risks sparking another civil war in Ethiopia. Tigrayan forces aligned with TPLF leader Debretsion Gebremichael dismantled local offices of the federally backed TIA, opened fire on civilians, and detained TIA cabinet members in at least three areas in Tigray on March 11.[1] Eritrean and Ethiopian media released conflicting reports on whether the anti-TIA forces attacked the TIA in Mekelle, the capital of Tigray.[2] The TPLF posted on March 13 that they had “entered offices” and “started services” in Mekelle and the Eastern zone of Tigray.[3] The TIA had suspended high-ranking officers and ordered Tigrayan forces to all military movement in the days before the attacks after warning that some Tigrayan forces were preparing “an outright coup.” [4] The TIA on March 12 called on the international community and the Ethiopian federal government to “exert all necessary pressure” on the anti-TIA forces.[5] Several European governments have since warned against travel to Ethiopia and encouraged their citizens to either leave or stock up on supplies in case the situation deteriorates.[6]
Figure 1. Attacks against Tigray Interim Administration
Source: Liam Karr.
The TPLF is an ethno-nationalist paramilitary group and political party based in the northern Tigray region in Ethiopia and fought the Ethiopian government in a civil war from 2020 until the Pretoria peace treaty in 2022.[7] Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed appointed the TIA as a temporary government in May 2023 as part of the Pretoria agreement and selected Getachew Reda—the former deputy head of the TPLF—as its leader.[8] The appointment of Reda split the TPLF into two factions. TIA critics have accused the TIA of acting in the interests of the federal government, while the TIA has accused the TPLF of trying to regain control over Tigray.[9] Many aspects of the Pretoria agreement, including the complete disarmament of the Tigray Defense Forces, have not been implemented. These failures have driven tensions between the TIA, TPLF, and Ethiopian federal government.[10]
The battle for legitimacy between the TPLF and TIA began in October 2023 and culminated in the violent power grabs in March 2025. The TIA dism...
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