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| - Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed on Wednesday announced he had ordered a military operation in the country's northern Tigray region, saying it came in response to a deadly attack on a federal army camp by the local ruling party. The government also declared a six-month state of emergency in Tigray, which has been locked for months in a bitter feud with Abiy, winner of last year's Nobel Peace Prize. Well before dawn Wednesday, Abiy announced on social media that the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), the regional ruling party, had "attacked a military camp in the region" and "tried to loot" military assets. The attack resulted in "many martyrs, injuries and property damage", Abiy said later in a five-minute address on state television, without providing a precise casualty total or specifying where the camp was. "Our defence forces... have been ordered to carry out their mission to save the country. The final point of the red line has been crossed. Force is being used as the last measure to save the people and the country," he said in the earlier post on Facebook and Twitter. It was not immediately clear what form the federal military response might take, or what the state of emergency declaration will entail. At a press conference Wednesday afternoon, Redwan Hussein, spokesman for a crisis committee formed in response to the hostilities, said the government wanted to "liberate" Tigrayans from the "gang of TPLF". But Redwan did not give a firm timeline for the operation, nor he say whether it involved detaining Tigray's leaders. Analysts and diplomats have warned for weeks that the standoff between the federal government and the TPLF could spiral into violence. "This war is the worst possible outcome of the tensions that have been brewing," said William Davison of the International Crisis Group (ICG). "Given Tigray's relatively strong security position, the conflict may well be protracted and disastrous," he said, warning of potential "shockwaves" for the wider Horn of Africa. Internet monitoring group Netblocks reported that the internet appeared to have been cut in Tigray. Abiy said on state TV that "traitorous forces" had turned on the military in the regional capital, Mekele, and the town of Dansha in western Tigray. The Dansha assault was "repelled" by security forces from Amhara region, bordering Tigray to the south, he added. A separate statement from Abiy's office accused the TPLF of dressing its soldiers in uniforms resembling those of the army of neighbouring Eritrea to "implicate the Eritrean government in false claims of aggression against the people of Tigray." Tigray's government said on regional state media that leadership and rank-and-file soldiers from the military's Northern Command, based in Mekele, "have decided to stand with the Tigray people and the regional government" -- a claim Abiy's office dismissed as "not true". The statement also said Tigray had closed its airspace. The US embassy in Addis Ababa urged "an immediate de-escalation of the current situation in Tigray and a measured response from both sides." The TPLF dominated politics in Africa's second most populous country for nearly three decades before Abiy came to power in 2018 on the strength of anti-government protests. Under Abiy, Tigrayan leaders have complained of being unfairly targeted in corruption prosecutions, removed from top positions and broadly scapegoated for the country's woes. Ethiopia was due to hold national elections in August, but the country's poll body ruled in March that all voting would need to be postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic. Lawmakers then voted to extend officials' mandates -- which would have expired in early October -- but Tigrayan leaders rejected this and went ahead with regional elections in September that Abiy's government deemed illegal. Now each side sees the other as illegitimate, and federal lawmakers have ruled Abiy's government should cut off contact with -- and funding to -- Tigray's leadership. In recent days tensions have also risen over who controls federal military assets in Tigray. The region is home to a large portion of federal military personnel and equipment, a legacy of Ethiopia's brutal 1998-2000 border war with Eritrea, its northern neighbour. Last week Tigray blocked a general appointed by Abiy from assuming a new posting, saying Abiy no longer had the authority to make such moves. Tigrayan officials have said in recent days they would not initiate a military conflict. On Tuesday night, Wondimu Asamnew, another senior Tigrayan official, told AFP the federal government was massing troops on Tigray's southern border -- a claim that could not be independently verified. "What they are doing is playing with fire," Wondimu said. "A small spark can ignite the whole region. So I think we are on the alert and I can assure you we are capable of defending ourselves." rcb/np/ri
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