Although analysts initially estimated that the TPLF had 250,000 men under arms, it quickly became clear that its power was much smaller. Government soldiers and related ethnic militias surrounded the TPLF forces by sealing Ethiopia’s borders with Eritrea and Sudan and effectively breaking the rebels’ supply lines.
And the TPLF got an unexpected blow when soldiers from Eritrea, Ethiopia’s former enemy, came over to Tigray to join forces with Mr. Abiy’s powers to fight. In such conditions, experts say, it is unclear how long the TPLF can last.
The situation is nevertheless fluid and unpredictable. Border clashes between Ethiopia and Sudan over the past few weeks over a piece of controversial agricultural land could play to the advantage of the TPLF. as Sudan helps the rebels to provide again.
And the top military commanders of the TPLF remain at large. Two Western officials and one with the TPLF, who was not authorized to speak in public, told Lt.Gen. Tsadkan Gebretensae, a former head of the Ethiopian army, has been identified as a senior rebel leader.
General Tsadkan led Ethiopia in a battle against Eritrea during the two countries’ brutal border war between 1998 and 2000. In recent years, after retiring from the army, he ran a small brewery. Now 66, he is back in battle with the newly formed Tigray Army, fighting the Ethiopian army he had earlier commanded.
According to Western officials, one TPLF fortress is in the Tembien Mountains, a cluster of winding hills and narrow winding roads in the middle of Tigray – part of a highland massif often referred to as the ‘roof of Africa’.
Kjetil Tronvoll, an expert on the TPLF at Bjorknes University College in Oslo, said that the party’s leadership probably spread into small groups to spread the risk of imprisonment.