Burhan, Sisi and Afwerki do not individually hold the key to Ethiopia’s war, just as Abiy Ahmed does not hold the key to Sudan’s. Yet each can now alter the other’s costs through proxies and grey zones.
The wars in Sudan and Ethiopia are no longer separate conflicts. The territory and armed actors of each state are being used to reshape the balance of power within the other.
Source: Sara Al-saeed
Sep 30, 2026
The most dangerous feature of the fighting in northern Ethiopia is neither the Tigray People’s Liberation Front’s return to arms nor the gathering of former enemies under a single banner to overthrow Abiy Ahmed’s government. It is the growing overlap between the geographies of war in Sudan and Ethiopia, which is making it difficult to determine where one conflict ends and the other begins. What is emerging is more than the regional spillover of two civil wars. It is an interlocked war system: a security structure in which each conflict loses its autonomy, one state’s domestic front becomes another’s strategic rear, and sanctuary and arms for proxies become instruments of reciprocal deterrence and retaliation. The border itself becomes a weapon.
On 21 September, seven Ethiopian armed groups, including the Tigray People’s Liberation Front and the Amhara Fano National Movement, announced an alliance with the declared aim of overthrowing Abiy Ahmed’s government. Two days later, the most extensive fighting since the 2022 Pretoria Agreement broke out. Operations spread from Tigray into Amhara and Afar, while airports and strategic towns changed hands before pro-government forces retook Alamata on 28 September. The alliance matters because it unites forces that fought one another only a few years ago. It is also brittle: its members disagree over territory, power and the nature of the Ethiopian state, and for now share little beyond a common enemy.
Amid this escalation, Ethiopia’s chief of the general staff, Field Marshal Birhanu Jula, accused Eritrea of supporting the TPLF and pointed to possible Sudanese and Egyptian involvement. As a political signal, the charge is highly significant. As evidence, it falls short of conclusive proof. Addis Ababa has made no documents public showing that Abdel Fattah al-Burhan or Abdel Fattah al-Sisi ordered the offensive, and no reliable evidence has emerged to show that a tripartite operations room is directing the fighting from abroad. The absence of a smoking gun, however, does not mean that the structure enabling intervention is absent. The serious question is not whether three presidents sat over a single map. It is whether interests, corridors and intermediaries have emerged through which each state can raise the cost to its adversary without declaring war. The available evidence points towards that conclusion.
The chain begins in western Ethiopia, not in the north. In February 2026, a Reuters visual investigation, based on fifteen sources and satellite imagery, reported that Ethiopia was hosting a secret camp in Benishangul-Gumuz to train thousands of fighters for Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces. An internal Ethiopian security memorandum reviewed by the agency referred to 4,300 trainees in early January. Ethiopia’s government, its military and the RSF did not answer Reuters’ questions, while the United Arab Emirates denied any role. The investigation does not convert every subsequent allegation into fact. It does, however, alter Port Sudan’s calculation. If the Sudanese army believes that Ethiopian territory is being used to generate manpower for its rival, transferring pressure into Ethiopia becomes a conceivable course of action rather than a remote conspiracy theory.
On the other side of the equation, assessments by Chatham House and the German Institute for International and Security Affairs state that Tigrayan fighters based in eastern Sudan have fought alongside the Sudanese Armed Forces. They also report that Army 70, an armed group linked to the TPLF, intervened in Sudan’s war, and that a coordination meeting in Port Sudan brought together Ethiopian opposition groups, Sudanese figures aligned with the SAF and Eritrean participants. These accounts do not prove that Sudan’s military leadership planned the September offensive in Ethiopia. They establish a narrower and more useful proposition: the Sudanese theatre already provides people, contacts and political space that can be activated against Addis Ababa. This is the first mechanism of the interlocked war system – reciprocal sanctuary. When a Sudanese force benefits from Ethiopian territory, Ethiopian opposition groups acquire greater value for that force’s Sudanese adversary.
From the perspective of Burhan’s government, the strategic logic is intelligible even if the scale of execution remains unknown. Its priority is not a conventional war with Ethiopia; it is already immersed in a conflict that is exhausting both state and society. Its least costly instrument would be to keep Addis Ababa occupied on several fronts, raise the price of any assistance it provides to the RSF and secure Sudan’s eastern depth through relationships with forces that know the Ethiopian terrain. This is retaliatory proxy warfare. It does not necessarily require a written agreement. Tolerance of cross-border movement, exchanges of information and open channels of finance may be sufficient. Sudanese involvement should therefore not be reduced to a search for one shipment or one signed order. If it exists at scale, it may take the form of an enabling environment rather than direct command.
Eritrea is the most sensitive and combustible link. Asmara fought alongside Abiy Ahmed against the TPLF between 2020 and 2022, but emerged from the Pretoria Agreement without guarantees commensurate with its role in the war. Ethiopia’s subsequent language about sovereign access to the sea, and Assab in particular, recast Abiy in Eritrea’s security calculus: a partner against Tigray became the leader of a much larger state that might seek to revise the coastal status quo. Tactical accommodation between Asmara and yesterday’s enemies then became comprehensible. Reconciliation does not require trust when both sides perceive a more urgent common threat.
Yet an absolute TPLF victory is not in Isaias Afwerki’s interest. A strong and autonomous Tigrayan force on Eritrea’s border was a historic enemy and could become one again. The more plausible logic is calibrated support: enough to weaken Ethiopia’s centre and deter its maritime ambitions, but not enough to give Tigray a preponderance that could threaten Asmara. Eritrea may therefore prefer to prolong an inconclusive balance rather than settle it. Within an interlocked war system, a proxy need not win outright to be useful. It may be enough to drain the adversary and force it to disperse its army and drones across several fronts.
Egypt requires the greatest analytical discipline. Cairo remains at odds with Addis Ababa over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and the balance of power along the Nile. In June, it deepened its coordination with Eritrea and reaffirmed its support for Sudan’s unity, its institutions and co-operation on Red Sea security. Egypt nevertheless denies intervening in Ethiopia, and there is no independent public evidence that it armed the TPLF or directed its latest offensive. The Egyptian role is therefore best understood as a potential strategic umbrella, not as established operational command: alignment with Port Sudan and Asmara, diplomatic pressure on Ethiopia, and an objective benefit from Abiy’s preoccupation with domestic crises.
That distinction neither absolves Cairo nor condemns it by insinuation. A state does not always have to dispatch weapons to alter a conflict’s balance. Strengthening partners who control borders, armed forces and corridors may be enough. Political co-ordination also does not imply identical objectives. Burhan wants to cut support to the RSF and preserve the army’s authority. Afwerki wants to constrain Ethiopian power and prevent the demand for sea access from becoming an existential threat. Sisi wants to improve Egypt’s position in the disputes over the Nile and the Red Sea. Their interests converge in restricting Addis Ababa’s freedom of action, but may diverge immediately afterwards. This is a coalition of convenience, not an ideological axis or a unified command.
The second mechanism is organised deniability. A patron can deny intervention because it need not own the entire operation. The combatant is local, the grievance domestic and the border long. Finance can pass through intermediaries, while intelligence exchanges can be labelled security co-operation. This structure can produce a military return while keeping the political cost of acknowledgement low. It also makes verification harder. Much of the information circulating during war forms part of psychological operations, so an unattributed image or a statement by one belligerent cannot be treated automatically as proof. The argument must rest on the convergence of independent lines of evidence, not the amplification of a single narrative.
The strongest objection is that the crisis is Ethiopian before it is regional. That is correct. The Pretoria Agreement stopped the fighting but did not create a complete political settlement. The return of displaced people, the status of Western Tigray, the allocation of authority within the region, disarmament and the representation of forces outside the TPLF all remained unresolved. Abiy’s government has not delivered a convincing federal bargain, and it has used coercion and drones to manage disputes that required a political process. In turn, Tigray’s hard-line leadership reasserted its hold over Mekelle, remobilised its forces and faced allegations of forced recruitment. Its new allies pursue contradictory claims that could erupt at the first contest over territory or spoils.
This objection identifies the fuel, but it does not fully explain the timing or pattern of ignition. Domestic fracture creates a susceptibility to war; the regional environment supplies money, sanctuary, routes and strategic purpose. If the present conflict were simply an Ethiopian relapse, the simultaneous importance of Tigrayan fighters alongside the SAF, a camp in Ethiopia linked to the RSF, and Eritrea’s accommodation with Abiy’s opponents would be difficult to explain. External actors do not manufacture every grievance. They reprice existing ones, turning a weak armed group into leverage, an overlooked border into a supply line, and a local crisis into an opportunity for interstate retaliation.
Nor should the new alliance be mistaken for a democratic front simply because it opposes Abiy Ahmed. An armed alignment against the government is not a programme for governing the country. The TPLF ruled Ethiopia for decades through a centralised system. Fano forces advance a nationalist project and territorial claims that collide directly with Tigrayan demands, while other groups fight for incompatible visions of federalism and sovereignty. Opposition to the centre confers no moral certificate, just as the legitimacy of the state gives Abiy’s government no open mandate for bombardment, detention or the closure of political space. A serious defence of Ethiopian unity requires accountability for government and opposition alike, rather than the canonisation of one and demonisation of the other.
The same standard applies to Sudan. Political alignment with a belligerent cannot erase the record of grave abuses attributed to the Rapid Support Forces, nor can it exempt the Sudanese army and its allies from accountability for violations and attacks on civilians. Justice is indivisible, but it is not a substitute for strategic analysis. It is possible to condemn crimes and demand an independent investigation while examining how Sudan’s war has created an incentive to support Ethiopia’s opponents. Confusing moral judgement with the explanation of conduct produces either propaganda or analysis detached from reality.
The third mechanism is weaponised geography. Benishangul-Gumuz borders Sudan, contains the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and lies close to routes into Blue Nile. Eastern Sudan is both a refuge and a gateway to Tigray, Eritrea and the Red Sea. Afar sits astride the roads to Djibouti, the principal artery of Ethiopian trade. Assab is central to Ethiopia’s conception of economic security and to Eritrea’s conception of sovereignty. Once armed groups and competing patrons intersect with this geography, a road, airport or crossing can matter more than a political declaration.
The hypothesis of interlocked wars is testable. If it is correct, we should expect Ethiopia to increase its security presence on the western front, around Asosa and Benishangul-Gumuz, rather than concentrating on Tigray alone. Co-ordination between Ethiopian opposition groups and centres of influence in eastern Sudan and Eritrea should widen, while most external assistance remains officially unacknowledged. Cairo should prefer deeper political and security co-ordination with Port Sudan and Asmara to an overt military intervention, while Eritrea calibrates its support to deny either side a decisive victory. The hypothesis would weaken if the war remained within its domestic lines, cross-border logistical links were severed and Ethiopia’s western deployment did not change.
On balance, Abiy’s government retains the advantages of statehood: a regular army, air power and drones, financial and diplomatic institutions, and opponents divided by profound contradictions. Its gravest threat is no longer one organisation capable of marching on Addis Ababa. It is a regional market that can turn every local antagonism into a front of attrition. If Abiy treats the crisis solely as a foreign conspiracy, he will fail to address the domestic conditions that sustain recruitment. If he treats it solely as an internal rebellion, he will overlook the network that supplies time, sanctuary and incentive.
Reversing this trajectory requires the two wars to be separated before either can be ended. That means independent monitoring of the Sudanese-Ethiopian border; the closure of training and support camps for any Sudanese belligerent in neighbouring states; renewed implementation of the Pretoria Agreement under African guarantees covering displacement, disputed territory and disarmament; and an Egyptian-Ethiopian channel that separates the Nile dispute from competition in the Red Sea. Diplomacy that treats each state in isolation will remain behind events because the network of war now moves faster than the network of mediation.
Burhan, Sisi and Afwerki do not individually hold the key to Ethiopia’s war, just as Abiy Ahmed does not hold the key to Sudan’s. Yet each can now alter the other’s costs through proxies and grey zones. This is the birth of a new regional system: no fixed alliance and no stable peace, but a balance in which fear is managed by exporting it across borders. In the Horn of Africa’s earlier wars, armies crossed frontiers. In this system, the frontiers themselves have become part of the war.
Sources and editorial verification
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1. Reuters, 21 September 2026 – Seven Ethiopian armed groups announce anti-government alliance
2. Reuters, 23 September 2026 – Why the new war in Tigray threatens a wider conflict
3. Reuters, 28 September 2026 – Pro-government forces retake the strategic town of Alamata
4. Reuters, 10 February 2026 – Visual investigation into a training camp linked to the RSF inside Ethiopia
5. Associated Press, 28 September 2026 – Ethiopian army chief’s allegations concerning Eritrea, Sudan and Egypt
6. Chatham House, 28 May 2026 – The intersection of Ethiopia’s domestic and regional conflicts
7. German Institute for International and Security Affairs, 22 July 2026 – Tigray in the grey zone between war and peace
8. Presidency of the Arab Republic of Egypt, 8 June 2026 – Meeting between the Egyptian and Eritrean presidents on Sudan and the Red Sea
