Is the scenario of the fall of Kabul in Ethiopia repeated?

It is tempting to compare the acceleration of events in Ethiopia and Afghanistan, a temptation that seems to go beyond analysts and observers to decision-makers, especially in Washington, which was quick to alert its citizens to the seriousness of the situation, which can be interpreted as "the impact of the Afghan moment."

The aforementioned “impact of the moment” reverberated in other capitals and similar calls were sent to their citizens, although the Tigray People’s Liberation Front fighters and their Oromo allies were about 400 kilometers from the capital at the time, which the Ethiopian government interpreted as an external attempt to pressure it.

In this context, the possibility of the rapid and sudden fall of Addis Ababa as a result of a sweeping attack by the Tigray forces and their allies is placed within a package of other scenarios that try to touch the path that events in Abyssinia will take, based on some features of similarities on the ground, where the conflict raging between the two parties, and the retreat of the official forces in many From the battles, the opposition took control of strategic positions on the way to the capital.

In addition, the Tigray fighters enjoyed a high fighting spirit, fueled by the tangible progress since last July, which led to the complete reversal of the battle scales. In a remarkable paradox, on this day (November 17) last year, announcing the end of the battle was announced. The three-day deadline for the surrender of the capital of the Tigray region, and the initiation of air raids on it, later ended with its fall.

However, assertiveness in this scenario is not without transgression of other facts related to the developments of the conflict and the positions of the parties involved in it. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abi Ahmed is still committed to the military confrontation and demands the withdrawal of his opponents’ forces from the areas they controlled in the regions of Amhara and Afar, and he realizes that this is difficult to achieve for many From the reasons, and therefore, in another way, he is betting on a military solution, as he has done since the beginning of this war.

Besides, his government has the advantage of covering its forces with the air force and drones, which is the weapon that destabilized the Tigrayan ranks in the first round of the war, as their leaders admitted, and it is also able to use the Eritrean ally that has participated alongside the Ethiopian army since the outbreak of this war, or This may have gone beyond seeking the assistance of Russia, with which it signed a military cooperation agreement on July 18, and this assistance may be translated through direct Russian participation or through Wagner's forces, which was understood from Ahmed's declaration that someone is trying to turn Ethiopia into Syria and Libya.

It seems that the young prime minister is based in his position, besides the above, on a set of papers, including the American call for the Tigray forces to stop the progress towards Addis Ababa, as a result of the fear of a major massacre on the doorstep of the capital, which is inhabited by more than three million people, especially when taking Taking into account the recruitment of the population to counter the Tigray.

What increases the concern of Washington and various parties in the international community is the refusal by many of the Ethiopian nationalities for the return of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front to power as a result of their grievances from the tyrannical practices they carried out during their rule of the country between 1991-2018. This may threaten the disintegration of Ethiopia and its slide into civil wars from which the region will not escape, and the United States and its allies in the Western system will not be spared from bearing the burden of failing to prevent another humanitarian catastrophe, after it was accused of failing in the tragedies in Rwanda and Bosnia.

Thus, preventing the Addis Ababa battle, or at least delaying it, appears to be an interest of multiple parties outside and inside Ethiopia. It gives the ongoing mediation initiatives an opportunity to try to work on the current ceasefire as a beginning to launch a process of a secure political transition in the country. On the other hand, it gives time for the Ethiopian opposition forces to arrange Papers and reaching consensus on a road map for the post-Abi Ahmed era, in a country that suffers from very complex problems and overlaps between political, ethnic, historical and geographical problems.

Here it is possible to place the latest alliance, which was not surprising, the announcement of its establishment in Washington between 9 Ethiopian opposition forces (the number increased later), which angered Addis Ababa and increased its reservations about the mediation led by the American envoy Jeffrey Feltman, which led it to failure, and Washington resorted to Supporting the mediation of the African Union, led by its envoy to the Horn of Africa, Olson Obasanjo, and coordinating with the Kenyan initiative of Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta.

The field behavior of the Tigray forces does not seem far from this trend, as the ambiguity of the military scene in the Amhara region is offset by a clear tendency from the Tigray People’s Liberation Front to seize the city of Melli in the Afari region, and thus control the vital artery linking Djibouti and Addis Ababa, and prevent vital supplies from it, which is This means the slow strangulation of the city, and prompting the government to accept the negotiating terms.

In addition to this scenario, the ability of mediation between the parties to the conflict to make a real breakthrough in the walls of the current crisis remains possible, even though the obstacles it faces reduce the levels of positive expectations from it.

The high ceilings of both Mekli and Addis Ababa complicate the task of mediators, while the former demands a safe transition of power and the country to the post-Abi Ahmed phase, the latter insists on agreeing to a ceasefire on the withdrawal of the Tigrayan forces from the lands they controlled outside its territory, while it demands the withdrawal of Amhara forces from the western Tigray region, which they controlled after the outbreak of the war, which is rejected by the Amhara, who consider these lands a historical part of their territory, and this is disputed by the Tigrays, claiming the opposite.

This is just an example of the complexities surrounding mediation efforts in Ethiopia, which pushes another scenario to the forefront of possibilities, which is that army officers overthrow the Ethiopian Prime Minister, a possibility that was previously circulated in circles close to the US military-industrial complex. The brown continent has witnessed many coups in the recent period, and that there is a division over dealing with Alitgray in the military establishment.

Despite what was mentioned, the war in Abyssinia, through its various stages, brought many surprises, which leads to saying that the barrel of the guns may make a different path from all of the above scenarios, so that the only constant in the Ethiopian war remains that it will lead the plateau to a new era, whatever direction this path.(Abdul Qadir Muhammad Ali )