Seven Ethiopian Armed Groups Announce Alliance to Remove Abiy Ahmed's Government

Seven Ethiopian armed groups announced Sunday, September 20, that they've formed a joint alliance aimed at removing Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's government and setting up a transitional authority.

The groups call themselves the Ethiopian Peoples' Forces Alliance for Survival, or the Alliance for Survival, according to a joint statement reported by Al Jazeera. The lineup includes some of the most bitter rivals in recent Ethiopian history now on the same side.

Who's In It

The alliance brings together the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), the party that ran Ethiopia for nearly three decades before Abiy took power in 2018; the Amhara Fano National Movement, a coalition of militias that has fought federal troops in the Amhara region since 2023; and the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), which has waged an insurgency in Oromia, Ethiopia's most populous region, since 2018.

Four smaller groups round it out: the Ogaden National Liberation Front, the Afar Revolutionary Democratic Unity Front, the Benishangul Peoples' Liberation Movement and the Gumuz Peoples' Democratic Movement.

TPLF Vice President Amanuel Assefa confirmed the pact to AFP. "We just formed an alliance, we are collaborating with several groups and our objectives are to remove the regime and facilitating a transitional government," he said, in comments carried by Arab News and L'Orient-Le Jour.

OLA military leader Jaal Marroo told a local broadcaster earlier this month that the groups had met several times before finalizing the deal. A source close to Fano told Al Jazeera the leaders had been negotiating for about a year.

The Stated Goal

In their joint statement, the groups accuse Abiy's government of imposing "dictatorial rule" that has pushed Ethiopia toward breakup, according to Al Jazeera. They say a transitional government, guided by a charter, would work to end the country's wars, protect rights, and open a national dialogue.

Ethiopia's federal authorities have not responded. Both Al Jazeera and AFP, whose reporting ran in Arab News and L'Orient-Le Jour, said the government did not answer requests for comment.

Abiy came to power in 2018 promising reform. He freed political prisoners and lifted bans on opposition parties. Al Jazeera notes that his opponents and human rights activists now accuse him of reversing those early gains.

Why Now

The timing tracks with a dangerous stretch on the ground. Al Jazeera reports that clashes in Tigray in recent weeks marked one of the most serious breaches yet of the 2022 peace deal that ended the last Tigray war. AFP reported, via Arab News, that the African Union has observed both federal troops and TPLF forces massing along Tigray's border in recent months.

That 2020-2022 war killed an estimated 600,000 people, a toll cited by both AFP and Assefa himself. Fighting has separately ground on in Oromia against the OLA since 2018 and in Amhara against Fano since 2023.

Skepticism About Whether It Actually Works

Kjetil Tronvoll, a regional specialist at Oslo New University College in Norway, told AFP the government's drone arsenal gives it a real edge, calling the effort "a sacrificial war for the rebels" and saying he's "not sure they will be able to sustain such a war."

Tronvoll did concede the coalition could complicate the government's position if the groups actually coordinate militarily, potentially opening four to five fronts at once. But he also raised the obvious follow-up question: what happens after, given how different these groups' ideologies are. Fano is an Amhara nationalist movement, the OLA fights for Oromo self-determination, and the TPLF ran a one-party state for decades. Uniting to remove Abiy is one thing; agreeing on what replaces him is another.

That tension is baked into the alliance's own language. The groups say they want an "inclusive" transitional government and a charter-guided process, but they haven't published details on how power would be shared among factions that have spent years fighting each other, and in some cases still hold territorial and political goals that conflict directly.

Media coverage of the story has run heavily through outlets with a left-leaning classification, according to Ground News' aggregator, which tracked five outlets on the story and found three leaning left against one on the right. The underlying facts, however, are consistent across the AFP-sourced reporting used by Arab News, L'Orient-Le Jour and others: seven groups, one stated goal, and a government that has so far said nothing publicly.

What happens next depends on whether the alliance can turn a joint statement into coordinated military action. Ethiopia's federal government has not announced any response, troop movements, or negotiating position as of this writing.