{"id":6131,"date":"2026-09-29T17:33:24","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T17:33:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=6131"},"modified":"2026-09-29T17:33:24","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T17:33:24","slug":"ethiopia-blames-regional-rivals-as-risk-of-conflict-spillover-rises-conflict-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=6131","title":{"rendered":"Ethiopia blames regional rivals as risk of conflict spillover rises | Conflict News"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By <\/span>Al-Nour Ahmed Al-Nour and Mohamed Khayal<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Published On 29 Sep 2026<\/span>29 Sep 2026<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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As renewed fighting spreads across northern Ethiopia, the government has accused<\/a> Eritrea, Sudan and Egypt of backing armed opposition groups, raising fears that the conflict could draw in regional powers.<\/p>\n

Over the weekend, Ethiopian army chief Birhanu Jula attributed his country\u2019s unrest to those he called Ethiopia\u2019s \u201chistorical and contemporary adversaries\u201d.<\/p>\n

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Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n

list of 3 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n

Birhanu accused Eritrea of being the go-between linking these external powers \u2013 including Sudan and Egypt, which he explicitly named \u2013 with armed groups inside Ethiopia.<\/p>\n

Eritrea, Sudan and Egypt have all rejected the accusations. Speaking to Al Jazeera, Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nader Zaki said that Egypt\u2019s foreign policy was founded on \u201cfull respect for the sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity of states, and noninterference in the internal affairs of other countries\u201d.<\/p>\n

Zaki added that Egypt \u201cis fully committed to the rules of international law and the Charter of the United Nations, and rejects any practices that would undermine regional security and stability\u201d.<\/p>\n

Major-General Samir Farag, the former head of the Egyptian Armed Forces\u2019 Morale Affairs Department, also told Al Jazeera that the accusations against Egypt were false. \u201cIt has not been Egypt\u2019s policy to interfere in the internal affairs of any state in the region,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Sudan\u2019s military also dismissed the accusations as \u201cbaseless\u201d and levelled its own charge of destabilising behaviour at Ethiopia, accusing it of supporting the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which has been fighting the Sudanese Armed Forces since 2023. Ethiopia has denied those allegations.<\/p>\n

Troubled relations<\/h2>\n

Ethiopia\u2019s relations with the countries it has accused have already been strained by other disputes that predate the latest fighting.<\/p>\n

Relations between Cairo and Addis Ababa have remained tense as a longstanding dispute over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) remains unresolved. Competition between the two has increasingly extended to regional security, the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa.<\/p>\n

\"Large
The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, the construction of which stoked fears in Cairo that Ethiopia could choke off the Nile River, September 9, 2025 [File:Tiksa Negeri\/Reuters]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sudan\u2019s relations with Ethiopia are similarly troubled. Since the outbreak of the Sudanese civil war, Khartoum has accused Addis Ababa of providing training, supplies and the use of Ethiopian territory to the RSF.<\/p>\n

Eritrea had fought alongside Ethiopia against rebel groups in the latter\u2019s Tigray region during a war between 2020 and 2022, but relations between the two neighbours have since soured, with Eritrea alarmed by Ethiopia\u2019s attempts to gain access to the Red Sea.<\/p>\n

Against that background, some analysts and Ethiopian opposition figures say that Addis Ababa is pointing the finger at foreign conspiracies in a bid to rally support behind its national army.<\/p>\n

Mohamed Selim, deputy chair of the Egyptian parliament\u2019s African Affairs Committee, told Al Jazeera that he believes the accusations were an attempt to shift attention from Ethiopia\u2019s domestic problems by creating an external enemy and seeking to unify the internal front.<\/p>\n

Amani al-Tawil, director of the Africa Programme at the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, similarly described the accusations as \u201can understandable attempt to escape from internal crises\u201d.<\/p>\n

She questioned why Egypt would choose this moment to intervene militarily in Ethiopia, given the two have been in dispute over GERD since 2011.<\/p>\n

Al-Tawil said the breadth of the new opposition alliance<\/a> in Ethiopia \u2013 seven groups representing disparate ethnic groups and regions announced the coalition last week \u2013 presented a challenge to Addis Ababa.<\/p>\n

\"INTERACTIVE
(Al Jazeera)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Spillover concerns<\/strong><\/p>\n

The renewed fighting in Ethiopia has spread across Tigray and into neighbouring Amhara and Afar.<\/p>\n

Mohammed Hussein, the chairman of the Prosperity Party Afar Region Branch Office \u2013 the ruling party in Ethiopia\u2019s Afar region \u2013 told Al Jazeera that the three regions together have a population of more than 38 million, according to his estimate, and include areas near the borders with Djibouti and Eritrea, raising fears of a regional war.<\/p>\n

Ammar Arki, a writer focusing on Horn of Africa affairs, told Al Jazeera that Ethiopia had, at various stages, blamed Sudan, Egypt and Eritrea for contributing to instability inside Ethiopia.<\/p>\n

He said the latest accusations could be interpreted as an attempt to redirect some domestic attention towards an external threat and build support around the federal government.<\/p>\n

But Arki warned that the longer Addis Ababa continued to explain its internal crisis in terms of an \u201cexternal conspiracy\u201d, particularly if neighbouring states responded in the same way, the greater the risk that Ethiopia\u2019s conflict could move beyond Ethiopia\u2019s borders and become regional.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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By Al-Nour Ahmed Al-Nour and Mohamed Khayal Published On 29 Sep 202629 Sep 2026 As renewed fighting spreads across northern Ethiopia, the government has accused Eritrea, Sudan and Egypt of backing armed opposition groups, raising fears that the conflict could draw in regional powers. Over the weekend, Ethiopian army chief Birhanu Jula attributed his country\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6132,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_templately_pack_id":"","_templately_imported_at":"","_templately_source":"","_templately_import_session_id":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-international-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t