Government says Tigray war is over, but fighting continues and the TPLF vows a counteroffensive

Running a hair salon in Mekelle, capital of Ethiopia's troubled northern Tigray region, is not easy at the moment. Firut Me'ar, a single mother of a 10-year-old daughter, says people cannot prioritise beauty over daily basic needs: for many residents, thinking about self-care is a luxury at a time when they cannot feed their kids.

After a brief war, the city is under the control of the national army, but life is far from normal, Firut says. Things are better than during the war, she told the BBC, but people still have no money and no morale, and business is almost non-existent. Above all, she says, people are worried about what the future holds, and there is uncertainty about what comes next.

Fighting broke out in late September between the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), the party that had run Tigray for decades, and the national army — a resumption of the two-year civil war that officially ended in 2022.

Within less than two weeks, federal forces marched into Mekelle. The TPLF made what it called a "strategic withdrawal" from the city and Tigray's other main towns, so the army encountered little resistance. Hundreds of people are reported to have died in the conflict, including dozens killed by drone strikes and bombing raids by the air force.

Ethiopian government officials and supporters argue that the war is effectively over and that the only remaining task is to clear Tigray of TPLF elements. Getachew Reda, a senior TPLF official who switched sides and is now an adviser to the prime minister, has declared that the war in Tigray has ended and that stabilising the region should now be the immediate priority.

The TPLF disputes that account. Speaking by telephone from an undisclosed location, its spokesperson Mikael Asgedom denies that the group has lost. Instead, he describes it as a deliberate tactical and strategic retreat: the TPLF, he says, intentionally allowed the national army to advance deeper into the heartland of Tigray, where it can be isolated and confronted on favourable terrain, because the group chose not to fight on terms favourable to the enemy.

Mikael says the TPLF is preparing for a major counteroffensive, and that its fighters have launched attacks against Ethiopian forces in several locations following their withdrawal from the region's towns — operations he argues demonstrate the group's continued military capability. On weapons, he says the group seizes them from the enemy, and that the weaponry that has entered Tigray will, sooner or later, become theirs.

It is hard to get verified information from Tigray, and the BBC is unable to report from there. Phone lines and the internet, which were cut when fighting broke out, have now been restored. Residents in different parts of Tigray tell the BBC that fighting is continuing in the central, northern and north-western parts of the region, with the use of heavy artillery and drone strikes.

Eyewitnesses around Sheraro, a town near the Eritrean border, report heavy fighting involving artillery and ground forces in recent days. A businessman, speaking on condition of anonymity, said heavy artillery fire could be heard from the Sheraro direction and that military convoys from both sides had moved towards the town, leaving people with no sense of security. A motorcycle operator in the southern town of Yechila says military checkpoints are still active there.

Cameroon Hudson, an analyst and consultant on African peace and security, says there are various reasons for the TPLF's rapid defeat. The group has lost popular support at home, it is fragmented, and it does not possess the advanced military technology necessary to match the ENDF, he says. It has also lost many of its generals, strategic thinkers, finest diplomats and fighters, through defections or arrests, and infighting within the TPLF leadership has caused significant damage.

Abraha Hailezgi, a scholar at Mekelle University, agrees. The TPLF's army lacks a clear political vision, he says; in recent years it has become associated with coercion, abuses, forced recruitment and arbitrary actions, and as a result many people have come to view the TPLF army as an adversary rather than a force acting on their behalf.

Memories of the devastating 2020–2022 Tigray war remain raw for many residents. That conflict saw widespread human rights abuses and allegations of ethnic cleansing in Western Tigray, while estimates suggest the war claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. As soldiers from Eritrea — accused of some of the worst atrocities in the previous conflict — and Ethiopia have reappeared in Tigray's towns, many residents describe a profound sense of fear and anxiety, saying the sight of the troops has reopened still-fresh wounds.

In early October, eyewitnesses told the BBC they had seen Eritrean troops in Tigray amid reports they were backing the TPLF. However, they appear to have returned home. Hudson thinks Eritrea would be wary of becoming further embroiled: the country does not have unlimited resources, the TPLF is no longer an effective military force so supporting it now would yield no significant gains, and Asmara would have to weigh the risk of provoking a confrontation with Ethiopia by openly backing the group.

Sources in the Ethiopian army tell the BBC that senior members of the TPLF's political leadership were briefly based in Eritrea, but that the authorities ordered them to leave in early November, shortly after President Isaias Afwerki returned from Russia. According to the sources, the move was driven by concerns that Ethiopia could use their presence as a reason to invade.

Analysts disagree on what comes next. Yared Tibebu, a well-known Ethiopian commentator based in the US, says a prolonged war in Tigray is possible: the TPLF has a long history of waging protracted armed struggles stretching back more than 50 years, he argues, and once the group has reorganised its military and political structures it may attempt to resume offensive operations — though not for some time, because of internal divisions, a suggestion dismissed by spokesman Mikael.

Hudson, by contrast, doubts the TPLF can sustain a major military campaign. The group may continue a low-level insurgency and guerrilla campaign, he says, but that is not war, and he does not expect a wider-scale conflict, because federal forces have significantly expanded and modernised in recent years and the TPLF, having lost much of its public support, cannot easily rebuild its ranks through recruitment. In September, seven Ethiopian rebel groups led by the TPLF announced the formation of a new coalition called the Alliance for Survival, aimed at removing Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's government.