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A surrender deadline for Tigray forces is just hours away with Ethiopia’s military threatening to bombard the regional capital – a city of half a million people.
Ethiopia’s prime minister on Wednesday rejected growing international demands for dialogue and a halt to deadly fighting in the northern Tigray region as “interference”, saying his country will handle the conflict on its own as the 72-hour surrender ultimatum expires at 16:30 GMT.
Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (Aqmi) has appointed one of its members to head the terrorist group to replace Abdelmalek Droukdel, killed last June during a French military operation in northern Mali.
The new leader from Algeria is an influential member of Aqmi, named Abu Obaida Yusuf al-Annabi.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed gave Tigrayan regional forces 72 hours to surrender before the military begins an offensive on the regional capital of Mekelle.
“We urge you to surrender peacefully within 72 hours, recognising that you are at the point of no return,” Abiy said in a Twitter message on Sunday evening.
Rebel forces from Ethiopia’s Tigray region have fired rockets into the city of Bahir Dar in the neighbouring Amhara region but caused no casualties or damage, Amhara’s government says, as federal forces move towards the Tigray capital.
“The illegal TPLF group have launched a rocket attack around 1.40am in Bahir Dar,” Amhara regional government’s communications office said on its Facebook page on Friday.
The Polisario Front, the organisation seeking independence for the disputed territory of Western Sahara, said this weekend it had launched attacks on Moroccan forces after ending a 30-year ceasefire.
The rebel group, which is backed by neighbouring Algeria, said on Saturday that “attacks of the Sahrawi People’s Liberation Army units continue against various hiding places of the Moroccan enemy along its positions in the occupied parts of the Sahrawi territory, causing loss of lives and equipments and disrupting its military plans”.