Ethiopia. ENDF. Powerful or ghost army?
The Ethiopian Premier promised a final offensive in October capable of similarly annihilating the TPL and the OLA by subduing Tigray and Oromia once and for all. A single weak point. The federal army. From regional power to ghost army
The great offensive of the ENDF federal army against the TPLF and OLA “terrorists” should begin in a few days. The offensive will take place on two fronts. To the north, the Amhara region will be liberated while the combined ENDF forces and Afar regional militias will invade Tigray. To the south, the ENDF will invade Oromia to annihilate the Oromo Liberation Army. The spokesman for the Amhara leadership (who also holds Prime Minister functions) Abiy AAhmed Ali has promised final victory. In just ten days the Tigray will be recaptured and the TPLF destroyed.
Abiy has announced that this offensive will be based on high technology, favoring the massive use of air raids and war drones over troops on the ground. Only the Amhara region (half occupied by the TPLF) will see a large use of troops following the express order given to Abiy by the nationalist Amhara leadership to free their homeland at all costs and as soon as possible.
According to the plans of the Amhara leadership, the October offensive will be the tombstone for the two democratic forces that dared to rebel against the Prosperity Party. The civil war will be a distant memory and the Amhara ethnic domination will be re-imposed as in the times of the Emperors of the Solomonic Dynasty. A brief investigation into war crimes, to please the United Nations and the West, will be set up with the first objective of erasing all evidence of the genocide taking place in Tigray. After that, Ethiopia can move towards its bright future of Prosperity and the old allies (including the United States) will surrender to realpolitik, resuming business with the victors: the Amhara and Abiy government.
For almost a year we have been accustomed to the Mussolini’s statements by the Ethiopian Premier. Already on November 28, 2020 he had declared the final victory in Tigray. During the civil war that lasted over the months and also reached Amhara and Afar, the Ethiopian Premier has repeatedly promised definitive military offensives. All these Mussolini’s statements have actually turned out to be their exact opposite, undermining the credibility not only of Abiy but of the Ethiopian government.
Noting that until now all the declarations of victory have not been reflected on the battlefields, the question arises: in which state is the federal army ENDF (Ethiopian National Defense Forces) really located?
The Ethiopian Federal Army is famous for being highly professional, well trained and with unlimited military means. This is mainly due to three factors. Massive financial and military efforts by the United States, the European Union and Israel which decided that the ENDF was to be a regional stabilization force to block the advance of Islamic extremism in the Horn of Africa. The well-known warrior tradition of the Ethiopians, of which we Italians have known well since the 1930s, and the military tactical capacity of its generals.
These three factors have made the Ethiopian federal army one of the most important regional forces, capable of competing with the Egyptian army even though the latter holds air and missile superiority over Ethiopia. The ENDF was used a lot in Somalia. In 2007 to dismiss the Islamic Courts and replace them with a federal government supported by the West. Since 2010 as support troops for the African military coalition AMISOM led by Uganda. The ENDF together with the UPDF (Ugandan army) were the main actors in the liberation of Somalia from the Islamic terrorist group Al-Shabaab affiliated with Al Qaeda and the DAESH.
Ethiopian soldiers also participate in various UN peacekeeping missions in Africa. Ethiopia currently has 52,727 soldiers engaged in Blue Helmets missions on the Continent. The strongest presence of the ENDF is recorded in South Sudan (13,545 men). The missions in order of importance follow in: Mali (12,425 men), Democratic Republic of Congo (12,299 men); Central African Republic (10,908 men); Lebanon (9,406 men); Abey, the disputed area between Sudan and South Sudan (3,241 men). It also participates with 1,061 men in the UN Observer Disengagement Force to oversee the disengagement of Syrian and Israeli troops at the border between the two nations. Another 2,267 Ethiopian soldiers participate in 12 other peacekeeping missions around the world.
In all these missions, the Ethiopian soldiers showed enormous fighting capacity, discipline and respect for human rights comparable only to the African contingents of Rwanda and Uganda. The presence of Ethiopian troops in the various theaters of African war makes the difference even if their war capacity is often blocked by obscure political maneuvers by the United Nations that over time have affected the effectiveness of the Blue Helmets in resolving conflicts and protecting civilians. .
Such an army should have easily defeated an army regional (that of Tigray) and a guerrilla armed only with small arms: the Oromo Liberation Army. The chronicles of these 11 months show the opposite.
The ENDF, after an apparent and too easy victory in Tigray recorded in November 2020, found itself mired in the mountainous region of northern Ethiopia, suffering constant losses of men and materials. The war against Tigray, which had been planned several months earlier, had momentary successes only thanks to the robust intervention of Eritrean troops. The latter also endured resistance against the TPLF guerrillas from December 2020 to April 2021. The reconquest of Tigray by the TPLF is due to the attrition of the Eritrean troops who eventually decided to withdraw while maintaining control of some Tegaru territories on the border of the ‘Eritrea. Throughout the long months of occupation of Tigray, the Ethiopian federal army took orders from the Eritrean army which coordinated the battle plans.
When the TPLF unexpectedly exported the war to Afar and Amhara, federal troops were defeated within days. To stop the advance of the TPLF, aware that the final goal was Finfinnee (Addis Ababa in the Oromo language), Abiy was forced to resort to a jumble of regional militias and troops that have given little results on the ground. Again the Eritrean troops were forced to intervene.
The withdrawal of the TPLF from AFAR is not due to a military superiority of the central government but to popular hostility towards the Tegaru. The TPLF leadership realized that its men in Afar were in danger of being in the same deadly situation as the Ethiopian and Eritrean troops in Tigray. To avoid a useless stream of men, the TPLF preferred to withdraw from Afar, giving up blocking the Djibouti — Finfinnee road and rail corridor.
In Amhara, the TPLF has recorded the greatest military successes which currently occupies, together with local militias, half of the homeland of nationalist Amhara leaders. The TDF continues to pose a serious threat to the historic capital Gondar and the current regional capital Bahir Dar. The fall of these two cities would be the preamble for the fall of Finfinnee.
The TPLF was unable to conquer the entire Amhara region and the two strategic cities not by the resistance of the federal army but by that of the regional Amhara army and by the support of the Eritrean troops present in Ethiopia. Eritrean soldiers often wear ENDF uniforms but remain autonomous in the chain of command. Eritrean troops also intervened in Afar.
The federal army has also proved weak in Oromia where the Oromo partisans of the OLA have recorded numerous victories. The only luck for the central government lies in the fact that the OLA does not have the military strength necessary to maintain the liberated areas. It is forced to an extreme mobility of its troops with the aim of wearing down the federal forces. The OLA currently poses no threat to Finfinnee (Addis Ababa) but only a major nuisance in Oromia. A nuisance that can turn into a real threat if the Amhara government fails to defeat the most important opposing military force: the regular Tigray army, TDF.
Since last July, the nationalist Amhara leadership has launched a vast recruitment campaign to rebuild the decimated federal army in Tigray, Amhara and Afar. According to some information, at least 600,000 young people have been recruited and trained in recent months. Some observers venture to hypothesize a million new recruits.
These numbers, if they corresponded to reality, would allow Abiy to field forces four times higher than those of the TDF and six times higher than those of the OLA. Strangely, the Amhara spokesman, Abiy, declares that the use of ground troops will be limited to the exclusion of the Amhara region which must be removed at all costs from the control of the TPLF.
How is it possible that an army among the best in Africa has not been able to quickly overwhelm the TDF and the OLA guerrillas, on the contrary suffering appalling losses that are compromising its offensive and defensive capabilities?
The current weakness of the ENDF was created by the Ethiopian Premier himself and by the Amhara leadership. Between 2019 and 2020, the Prosperity Party made substantial changes in the Army General Staff and among its highest officers, replacing Generals and Colonels Tegaru with colleagues of Amhara origin. The goal was clear: to have control over the federal army to eventually use it against Ethiopian populations or regions reticent to the Amhara ethnic domination, disguised by a false password: National Unity.
In the process of replacing the cadres of the federal armed forces, the same criterion that was adopted by the fascist regime in the 1930s was applied. The Generals and Colonels in power were selected not for their military skills and knowledge of the art of war but for their loyalty to the Prosperity Party. As was the case with the Fascist army, the Ethiopian army is now led by totally incompetent senior officers.
During the period of reorganization of the cadres of the federal army, the TPLF, sniffing the future events, ensured control of the best units including the Northern divisions stationed in Tigray. The replaced Tegaru Generals and Colonels have been integrated into the Tigray Regional Army. Senior retired officers who in the past had won big victories against Mengistu’s DERG or abroad were also recalled.
The TPLF, which initially numbered around 250,000 men, was thus able to count on a highly professional command that easily confronted Generals and Colonels Amhara who were actually politicians. The subtle and complicated tactics adopted by the TDF clash with the primitive tactics of the Amhara officers who, in short, consist in sending thousands of young Ethiopians to slaughter. The only officers capable of withstanding the confrontation with those of the TDF are the Eritreans.
Unfortunately for them, the inability to understand the TDF tactics and a large dose of initial underestimation of the potential of the TPLF, dictated by clanic contempt, have placed the Eritrean officers in a position to suffer the initiatives of the TDF in Tigray with a regular dripping of men. The joint weakness of the Ethiopian and Eritrean occupation troops towards the TDF was at the root of the first war crimes in Tigray. Faced with military defeats, Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers took revenge on civilians, just as the Nazi troops in retreat from the Russian, Yugoslav and Italian fronts did in 1944. The persistence of war crimes in Tigray led to the natural metamorphosis that laid the foundations for the current genocide of the Tegaru people.
The various militias offered by other Ethiopian regions could not make a difference, stopping the TPLF offensives in Afar and Amhara for one simple reason. The dispatch of regional troops was not a unanimous decision of the various ethnic communities that make up the Ethiopian federation. It was a decision imposed by the various regional parties of the Prosperity Party which since December 2019 have artificially taken control of the regions after the TPLF’s exit from the government and the replacement of the governing coalition that had ruled the fate of the country for 30 years with the single party of the Prosperity Party.
The recruitment of regional troops to be sent to the Afar and Amhara fronts was a great fiasco. Most of the volunteers were motivated by ethnic hatred but had no military experience. The inability of the Amhara officers also compromised their training. The majority of the population of the various regions was hostile to sending their children to die for the Amhara leaders.
Strong doubts also persist about the enlistment campaign to reform the federal army. While the estimated 600,000 new recruits seem plausible, most of them have been enlisted by coercive means. The training received is of low quality. These two factors make the new recruits totally unprepared to take on veteran Tigrayan wardogs and unreliable on the battlefield. This is the main reason why the Amhara leadership has chosen to favor air strikes and drones over ground troops for the impending offensive.
It should also be considered that the federal army is very demoralized due to the continuing defeats inflicted by both the TPLF and the OLA. Cases of desertion would be very frequent even if the Amhara government tries to hide them. Only in Amhara, the Ethiopian Premier, foresees a massive use of ground troops. According to various regional military observers, the ENDF has little chance of obtaining a landslide and definitive victory in Amhara despite air coverage if Eritrean troops decide not to intervene.
Will massive use of air raids and drones be enough to win the civil war? The supremacy of the skies and the use of drones offer an obvious and undisputed advantage but history has shown that they are insufficient means to obtain a decisive victory. In the end, it is the land troops who can ensure the annihilation of the enemy. This was demonstrated in Europe during World War II, in Vietnam, Syria, Afghanistan and other world war theaters.
The example of Afghanistan is revealing. For nearly twenty years, the American and NATO armies have relied on high technology with air strikes and drones without achieving any decisive victory. Air raids and drones can create massive damage to the enemy but cannot completely neutralize its offensive and defensive capabilities. sive. For an army like that of Tigray, expert in conventional warfare and guerrilla warfare, it is easy to switch from field operations to guerilla operations to buy time, reorganize forces and launch new offensives. Just like the Taliban did in Afghanistan.
The Taliban saying: “Americans have the clock but we have the time” fits perfectly with the current situation in Ethiopia. Both the TPLF and the OLA point to a protracted civil war. It doesn’t matter if it takes 5, 10 or 20 years. Time is running out for the Amhara management that desperately needs a lightning victory.
If the civil war continues into 2022, the Ethiopian government risks finding itself in an unsustainable international situation, especially if the genocide taking place in Tigray is recognized. The Ethiopian economy, disintegrated by the Covid19 pandemic and, above all, by the civil war, will not be able to withstand a long-lasting conflict. As it was for the last Amhara emperor and the DERG, the Poverty Party is also in danger of collapsing due to the financial inability to sustain the conflict.
Ultimately, the Amhara leadership is going all out in this impending offensive in October but, in order to achieve its objectives, this offensive must totally destroy the TPLF and the OLA. An eventuality considered very difficult to achieve.
