The Ethiopian authorities have launched an attack against the president of Eritrea, Isaias Afewerki, whom they have described as "the father of miscalculations," following allegations against Asmara for the supposed sending of military personnel to the Tigray region in the north of the country. These accusations, linked to the new offensive of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), have been rejected by the Eritrean government, in a new episode of friction between the two neighboring states.
Getachew Reda, advisor to Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, and former prominent leader of the TPLF, has stated that "taking calculated risks has never been the strong point" of the leadership of the Tigrayan formation "in its current residual state." "This was more than demonstrated by their recent and disastrous miscalculation," he indicated, referring to the aforementioned offensive launched by the group.
"What is even more striking is how this error, typical of their behavior, was exacerbated by the nefarious alliance that the TPLF leadership forged with the father of catastrophic miscalculations: Isaias Afewerki," he has ironized, before also alluding to "the miscalculations of the other minor partners of the disastrous alliance," referring to the coalition of opposition and rebel organizations recently created and led by the TPLF.
In this line, Getachew has emphasized that "the leadership of the TPLF and President Isaias have demonstrated, if it was necessary, their enormous capacity to drag into absolute oblivion all those who are foolish enough to trust in their wisdom," according to a message disseminated on social media.
"History seems to have issued a rather cruel verdict on President Isaias's inclination towards geopolitical bets; it turns out to be the cruelest of ironies that this alliance with his worst enemy, the TPLF, is about to bring ruin to the great fool of Asmara," he has concluded.
The advisor to Abiy has brought up the long confrontation between the TPLF and the Eritrean authorities, referring to the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea (1998-2000), when power in Addis Ababa was controlled by the Tigrayan group. That conflict ended with a peace agreement signed in July 2018 by the current Ethiopian Prime Minister, a gesture that earned him the Nobel Peace Prize.
The reconciliation between Ethiopia and Eritrea starting in 2018 was reflected in Asmara's support for Addis Ababa during the war against the TPLF between 2020 and 2022. However, this time the Ethiopian Executive has accused Afewerki of backing the TPLF in its new offensive and even of having sent military units to Tigray.
The TPLF announced on September 23 the start of a "defensive war" against the Ethiopian federal forces, after weeks of escalation and attacks despite the peace agreement sealed in 2022 in South Africa. Since then, the government army has proclaimed advances on the ground, including the capture of the regional capital of Tigray, Mekelle.
The Government of Ethiopia declared the pact reached after the war that began in 2020 broken in July, a conflict that left between 100,000 and 600,000 dead, according to various estimates. After that agreement, Tigray was administered by a provisional executive accepted by the federal authorities and headed by Getachew himself, who was dismissed after the TPLF regained control of the regional institutions in May.
The resurgence of violence has been accompanied by an increase in tensions between Ethiopia and several neighboring countries, including Eritrea, Egypt, and Sudan, which Addis Ababa accuses of supporting the rebels in their military campaign, in a context marked by disputes over the dam on the Blue Nile and Ethiopia's demands for access to the Red Sea.