Ethiopia’s air force has carried out strikes in the restive Tigray region, the country’s prime minister has said, in another escalation of a crisis that observers fear could plunge the country into a bitter and bloody civil conflict.
The prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, said the strikes in multiple locations “completely destroyed rockets and other heavy weapons” belonging to the well-armed regional government and made it impossible for a retaliatory attack.
There was no mention of casualties in what Abiy called the “first round of operation” against the region’s government, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. He said the air force destroyed heavy weapons in Tigray’s capital, Mekele, and surrounding areas.
The operation in the northernmost of the nine regions of Ethiopia will continue “until the junta is made accountable by law”, Abiy said. He asserted that the “large-scale law enforcement operation” has “clear, limited and achievable objectives: to restore the rule of law and the constitutional order”.
The TPLF dominated Ethiopia’s government before Abiy took office in 2018, but its power has since waned. Abiy’s government launched military operations in Tigray on Wednesday, after he accused the TPLF of attacking a military camp in the region and attempting to loot military assets. The TPLF denies the attack and has accused Abiy of concocting the story to justify deploying the military.
There was no immediate response from the government in Tigray to the announcement of airstrikes. The region is being increasingly boxed in by movement restrictions and a six-month state of emergency imposed by the federal government.
Earlier in the day Abiy had threatened Tigray’s leaders, warning that there was “no place for criminal elements” in Ethiopia. “The proud Ethiopian people of Tigray [and] other citizens cannot be taken hostage by fugitives from justice forever. We shall extract these criminal elements [from Tigray and] relaunch our country on a path to sustainable prosperity for all,” last year’s Nobel peace prize winner said in a statement on social media.
