Ethiopia's Tigray region has plunged back toward open war, with forces loyal to the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) seizing control of three airports and launching coordinated offensives across multiple fronts. On Wednesday, Tigrayan forces took over airports in Mekelle — Tigray's regional capital — as well as Axum and Shire, prompting Ethiopian Airlines to suspend all flights to the region. Clashes with federal troops spread into the neighbouring Afar region, where fighting broke out in the towns of Abala and Erebti, and rebel forces reportedly encircled the strategic junction town of Woldiya in the Amhara region to the northwest. A former TPLF senior official told AFP that federal forces were "fast-retreating" across several positions in Afar.

Both sides have accused the other of striking first. The TPLF said it launched what it called a "defensive war" in response to intensive federal bombardments — including drone strikes and artillery — that it says began on Tuesday. A strike on the southern Tigrayan town of Alamata on Tuesday killed at least 14 civilians and injured 22, according to Tigrayan authorities, who accused federal forces of targeting two secondary schools. The federal government has not commented on those allegations. For its part, Getachew Reda — a former Tigrayan official who defected to the federal government in 2025 — accused the TPLF of launching "an all-out offensive" against federal positions in Afar and Amhara. The US ambassador to Ethiopia also condemned the TPLF for making "the poor decision to launch a large-scale offensive." The BBC has not independently verified the competing claims.

The renewed fighting comes just days after the TPLF announced it had joined a seven-group military alliance — the Ethiopian Peoples' Forces Alliance for Survival — with the stated aim of overthrowing Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's government and installing a transitional administration. The coalition includes Amhara nationalist Fano militias and the Oromo Liberation Army, a notable reversal given that Fano fighters previously allied with federal forces against the TPLF during the 2020–2022 war. The TPLF dominated Ethiopian national politics from 1991 to 2018 before being sidelined by Abiy's rise, a process that eventually triggered the devastating civil war in which an estimated 600,000 people died, according to the African Union.

The 2022 Pretoria Agreement, brokered by the African Union, formally ended that conflict, but key provisions remained unimplemented. Sporadic clashes resumed in late 2025, and the federal government has since conducted drone strikes in Tigray and massed troops along its borders. Tigray itself has still not recovered: around one million people remain displaced from the last war. Rights groups have accused the TPLF of forcibly recruiting young men in preparation for renewed conflict. The federal government has also alleged that neighbouring Eritrea has been supplying weapons and hosting Tigrayan fighters, and formally accused Sudan of providing arms and financial support — an allegation Khartoum denied. Analysts have also assessed Egypt, which is locked in a long-running dispute with Ethiopia over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Nile, as providing diplomatic cover to opposition factions.

The African Union Commission's chairperson called for "immediate de-escalation" and a return to dialogue, while the US State Department separately condemned a drone strike on a convoy of Catholic aid vehicles and urged all parties to resolve differences peacefully. Speaking at the UN General Assembly, Ethiopian President Taye Astike Selassie said his country had shown "immense restraint" in the face of what he described as interference by unnamed adversarial elements. Analysts warn that while the new coalition represents a major escalation, it remains uncertain whether the alliance has the sustained military capacity to maintain operations at this intensity, particularly given the federal government's significant advantage in drone warfare.