Explosions were heard overnight in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, as an opposition source claimed drone strikes targeted military sites, raising fears that renewed fighting in the north could spread beyond the front lines.
Three diplomatic sources said they heard explosions in the city overnight on Thursday.
A source linked to an opposition alliance fighting government forces in northern Ethiopia said the group had carried out several drone strikes in Addis Ababa, including strikes on military headquarters.
Reuters could not independently verify the claim. Witnesses said there was no visible damage near the military base.
If confirmed, the strikes would be the first known drone attacks by anti-government forces on Addis Ababa, hundreds of kilometres from the fighting in the northern regions of Tigray, Amhara and Afar.
Spokespeople for Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s office, the federal government and the Ethiopian National Defence Force did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The blasts came a day after Ethiopia’s national intelligence service announced a ban on drone flights over Addis Ababa and surrounding areas for security reasons.
Last week’s clashes marked the biggest escalation in Ethiopia since the end of a two-year civil war in 2022.
Opposition forces had not previously been known to operate armed drones, although there is growing evidence that they may have such a capability. On Tuesday, a pro-government militia said it had captured drone frames and batteries from forces linked to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), one of the main members of the opposition alliance.
Reuters could not independently verify that claim.
Edward Bach, senior Africa analyst at risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft, said the opposition’s ability to strike Addis Ababa would be “a political game-changer”, potentially undermining the government’s narrative that the capital is unaffected by the conflict and reducing a key tactical advantage for federal forces: their aerial superiority.
The latest fighting has shattered a four-year-old peace deal between the TPLF and Abiy’s federal government. The previous two-year war killed hundreds of thousands of people.
The TPLF has formed an alliance with six other armed groups seeking to overthrow Abiy’s government.
Federal forces have been advancing through southern Tigray towards the regional capital, Mekelle, while the opposition alliance has captured towns in neighbouring Afar.
The pro-government Tigray Peace Forces militia said on Wednesday that it had captured Korem, about 100 km south of Mekelle, alongside Ethiopian military forces.
In Afar, where the TPLF captured several towns in the early stages of the conflict, fighting has forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes, Valerie Browning, a founder of the Afar Pastoralist Development Association, told Reuters.
An Afari government official told Reuters on Thursday that federal and regional forces had recaptured Erebti and Abaala, near the border with Tigray.
The renewed conflict could further destabilise the wider Horn of Africa, already affected by Sudan’s civil war, tensions between Ethiopia and Eritrea over Red Sea access, and spillover from conflicts in the Middle East.
Ethiopia’s government has accused Eritrea, Sudan and Egypt of supporting the opposition alliance. All three countries deny the allegations.
Afar’s chief administrator, Haji Awol Arba, went further earlier this week, telling Al Jazeera that Eritrean soldiers had crossed into Afar to join the alliance’s offensive.
Eritrea’s information minister did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
During Ethiopia’s previous civil war, Eritrea fought alongside federal forces against the TPLF. Relations between the former rivals have since deteriorated, with Asmara viewing Abiy’s repeated assertions that landlocked Ethiopia has a right to sea access as an implicit threat.
Abiy has said Ethiopia intends to secure sea access through peaceful means.
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