Issue No. 276

Fano Insurgency Escalates Amid Threat of Multi-Sided Conflict
 

While international attention has been trained on the political schism within Tigray and the drumbeat of war between Ethiopia and Eritrea, the Fano insurgency in the Amhara region has escalated further. On 19 March, several of the most prominent Fano militias launched "Operation Unity" in the Amhara region, targeting dozens of Ethiopian military installations and inflicting significant casualties. The attack across Gojjam, Gondar, and Wollo demonstrated a previously unseen level of coordination between these Fano factions.

The offensive was preceded by Fano militias briefly withdrawing into their rural strongholds, who, having been pursued by Ethiopian National Defence Force (ENDF) troops, hit back in a series of counterattacks. As has happened previously, Fano militias subsequently advanced into several towns, including Woldiya, Dessie and Lalibela, before being pushed back. However, the ENDF has now been forced to withdraw from large parts of rural Amhara to secure their positions in fortified villages and towns. For the first time in the conflict, mechanised brigades have been deployed to Amhara, while significant ENDF soldiers had to be dispatched to Bahir Dar to repel the Fano incursion. But for the most part, the military response from the government has been as anticipated, with an increase in drone strikes alongside further mass detentions of young men in both Addis and the Amhara region. The Fano offensive incurred substantial losses to the militias as well. To date, the ENDF has struggled to capture or kill senior Fano commanders, but on 18 March, senior Wollo Fano leader Ayalew Abate was killed in action, and dozens of Fano fighters have also been slain in the intense clashes.

Significant preparations were undertaken by Fano in the weeks building up to Operation Unity, particularly by Zemene Kassie's influential Gojjam Fano faction. The pre-eminent Fano militia has sought to internally restructure, positioning itself for a more coordinated insurgency by promoting former military officials within its ranks and conducting leadership training. In East Gojjam, for example, former ENDF officer Captain Mulat Sisay and former Amhara Special Forces officer Major Getinet Niguise conducted training sessions for Fano brigade-level commanders. ENDF defectors have also been incorporated into other wings of Gojjam Fano, with the Agew Midir Division and Ghion Brigade elevating former special forces members to senior positions in early March. 

However, fractures still remain within and between a number of factions. Within the Amhara Fano Unity in Gondar group, the Kitaw Igigu Division has struggled to overcome leadership issues arising from the merging of two militias in December 2024, led by Habte Wolde and Baye Kenau in Central Gondar. Tensions over leadership appointments have persisted since, but on 7 March, after internal mediation, a temporary power-sharing agreement was brokered.

Addis's political response to the surge in Fano activity has been to mistakenly lump elements of its domestic political and armed opposition together. In a blistering attack last week, the ENDF accused a senior Tigrayan commander, Brigadier General Migbey Haile, of "encouraging and coordinating" the Fano offensive in the Amhara region. The ENDF went on to claim– without evidence– that Brig. Gen. Migbey was a "long-time agitator of conflict" responsible for fighting in Tigray, as well as implicated in transnational gold smuggling networks. The Tigray Bureau of Peace and Security pushed back firmly, calling the ENDF statement a "coordinated defamation campaign against the Tigrayan people, their institutions, and their leadership."

Migbey falls into the Debretsion Gebremichael camp within the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) rift, having backed the January 2025 Tigray Defence Forces (TDF) resolution that rejected Getachew Reda's leadership. He was also one of the three senior military officials whom Getachew, who has since departed for Dubai, attempted to suspend, which triggered public resistance from the Bureau. Ironically, the attempt by Addis to draw together Fano, Eritrea, and Debretsion's TPLF faction in the same breath is doing precisely that, with Eritrean and Tigrayan officials in increasing communication over the rising threat from the Ethiopian federal government. Addis likely needs the TDF onside, or at the very least neutral, if it intends to invade Eritrea, but its contradictory positioning and sudden outbursts have badly undermined its standing within Mekelle. 

Though Addis's militaristic rhetoric against Asmara has cooled somewhat in recent days, preparations are nevertheless still underway for a potential invasion. In Afar, construction on a drone launching site has now been completed, while elite forces from Oromia and Amhara have been redeployed in anticipation of conflict. Still, some harried bilateral diplomacy is underway, including from Saudi Arabia, which dispatched Vice Foreign Affairs Minister Waleed Abdulkarim El Khereiji to Addis last week to urge for calm. In the meantime, though, Asmara is also mobilising its forces towards the border and conscripting men. Eritrean dictator Isaias Afwerki possesses several destabilising tools at his disposal, not just the Fano movement but Afar militias as well. Since the now-collapsed rapprochement between Addis and Asmara, the Eritrean intelligence services have also penetrated Addis and are looking to unsettle the city. But Asmara remains highly concerned about an outbreak of outright conflict with Ethiopia, with the simple facts of demography working against Eritrea and the country far outnumbered by its southern neighbour.

In many ways, the escalating insurgency in Amhara, Debretsion's anti-Addis faction asserting control over Mekelle, and the tinderbox of Western Tigray have resulted from the federal government's failure to implement the Pretoria agreement. As part of the faulty expanded cessation of hostilities agreement that ended the Tigray war, it was pledged that the highly fertile and flat lands ethnically cleansed of their Tigrayan population would be returned to Mekelle's control. Today, however, over two years later, the federal government and Amhara militias control most of the region, including the areas bordering Sudan, with Addis having been reluctant to allow the TPLF cross-border access. This has permitted Eritrea to continue to support Fano militias directly through Western Tigray as well as eastern Sudan-- an issue the TDF would likely have been able to quash if it were in charge of the region. Moreover, one of the principal frustrations with the Getachew Reda administration, aligned with Addis, was its inability to restore these constitutionally Tigrayan lands to Mekelle's control.

If Western Tigray had been returned to Mekelle, Getachew would likely still be in his post, a key Eritrea-Fano supply route would be severed, and Addis would be considered a more serious interlocutor in peace talks with other armed groups in the country. Instead, Western Tigray remains a tinderbox of competing claims and armed groups that could quickly become another site of multi-sided conflict. And if a war between Ethiopia and Eritrea does break out, Fano's Operation Unity may just be the start of a much broader and dangerous conflict.