The Ethiopian Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed, said that his country's army is fighting "on eight fronts" in hotbeds of tension, including the Tigray region, indicating that his opponents there have adopted guerrilla warfare tactics.
Referring to the Tigrayan Liberation Front, Abiy Ahmed said, “The military group, which we displaced within 3 weeks, transformed itself into a guerrilla force, mixed with farmers, and started moving from one place to another, and we cannot eliminate it within 3 months.”
"Eliminating a visible enemy, eliminating a hidden enemy, and working through mixing with others is two different things. It is very difficult and stressful," said Ahmed, a 2019 Nobel Peace Prize winner.
The Ethiopian Prime Minister stated that the front forces "attacked the camps of the Federal Army, which quickly took control of the cities and towns of Tigray, supported by forces from the Amhara and neighboring Eritrea," adding that the front leaders "are still at large, and the fighting continues."
The Ethiopian army is also fighting a rebel group in the Oromia region, which the government has held responsible for several massacres of civilians, one of which took place last week, which left dozens of dead.
In this regard, the Ethiopian Prime Minister stated that "the National Defense Forces and the Federal Forces are currently fighting a major fight on 8 fronts in the north and west against enemies hostile to the peasants and civilians, and are stirring up discord among the Ethiopians."
Ahmed said that the federal forces "carried out large operations in the last three days," which caused "great damage to the enemies of the people," and promised that these efforts would be "strengthened and continued."
It is reported that it is difficult to determine the number of people killed as a result of the fighting in Tigray;
Due to restrictions imposed on access for humanitarian workers, researchers, and journalists, numerous reports of massacres, extrajudicial killings and sexual violence were published.
And Abiy Ahmed is facing increasing pressure to ensure the withdrawal of Eritrean soldiers from Tigray, and the International Crisis Group announced last Friday that the conflict is about to turn into a prolonged stalemate.
The Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, on Saturday evening, that these forces "began to withdraw as the federal government reduced the ability of the Tigrayan Liberation Front to wage a large-scale insurgency."
But Ahmed's statements indicate that violent fighting continues in Tigray (the north of the country), 4 months after declaring victory, as he sent the federal army to Tigray last November to disarm the Tigray People's Liberation Front forces ruling then in the region.