Where the alliance's offensive stands, and how far its command is unified

Four days into the offensive, the coalition's military weight was concentrated in the north. Tigrayan forces, the Amhara Fano National Movement and the Afar organisation ARDUF were fighting along overlapping axes from the Tigray-Afar border through North Wello and Wag Hemra. Analysts assessed that cooperation as grounded in overlapping immediate interests rather than a single unified command, and as of 24 September no coordinated operations had been recorded by the OLA, ONLF, BPLM or GPDM, even though the coalition said all of its members were conducting counterattacks.

The movements carry their own histories. The AFNM and Tigrayan forces fought on opposite sides in the 2020-2022 war; the OLA spent years fighting the TPLF-dominated government that preceded Abiy; the ONLF's leadership inside Ethiopia denies joining at all. Coalition figures present the charter as the answer: remove the government, run a transitional administration, hold a constitutional dialogue, then hold elections.

What is not in dispute is the displacement the region was already carrying. Roughly one million people remain displaced from the last war, and the UN migration agency had counted about three-quarters of a million people displaced inside Tigray before this offensive began. Regional analysts warn that the fighting risks drawing Ethiopia's neighbours in.