Premier defends military offensive

NAIROBI, Kenya — Ethiopia’s prime minister on Friday night said air strikes have been carried out against the forces of the country’s wellarmed Tigray region, asserting that the strikes in multiple locations “completely destroyed rockets and other heavy weapons.”

Abiy Ahmed’s announcement on the state broadcaster marked another escalation in clashes this week that experts say could escalate into civil war.

There was no mention of casualties in what Abiy called the “first round of operation” against the region’s government, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. The operation will continue, Abiy said, “until the junta is made accountable by law.”

Hours earlier, the prime minister defended the military operations that were launched early Wednesday after Abiy accused the Tigray government of a deadly attack on a military base. He asserted that months of patiently trying to resolve differences with the regional government have failed because of the leadership’s “criminal hubris and intransigence.”

He asserted that the offensive has “clear, limited and achievable objectives: to restore the rule of law and the constitutional order.” He described the region’s leadership as “fugitives from justice … using the civilian population as human shields.”

The prime minister, who won the Nobel Peace Prize last year for his sweeping political reforms, now faces his greatest test as the TPLF, which dominated Ethiopia’s government before he took office in 2018, has pushed back while feeling marginalized.

The northern Tigray region is increasingly cut off as Ethiopia’s civil aviation authority said airports in Mekele and the regional cities of Shire, Axum and Humera were “closed for any services.” And in Sudan, the acting governor of Kassla province said its border with northern Ethiopia has closed “until further notice” due to the tensions, the Sudan News Agency reported.

Alarm has grown as one of Africa’s most powerful countries nears civil war, which experts say would be catastrophic and destabilizing for the Horn of Africa.