Ethiopia pm Abiy Ahmed says Tigrayan rebels defeated

Abiy Ahmed, Ethiopia's Prime Minister, attends his last campaign event ahead of Ethiopia's parliamentary and regional elections scheduled for June 21 in Jimma, Ethiopia, June 16, 2021. REUTERS Tiksa Negeri File Photo

NAIROBI, Nov 30, Reuters -- Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said his foes had been defeated and promised to recapture territory in the region of Amhara from rebellious Tigrayan forces after praising military victories against the Tigrayans in the region of Afar.

On Tuesday, footage from the front aired on state-affiliated Fana Broadcasting showing Abiy wearing military jungle fatigues and cap and scanning the horizon with binoculars.

In just one day of planning and a day and half long fighting, the East Command secured an unimaginable victory, he said. We will repeat that victory in this front. Fana said he was addressing troops on the frontlines of the Ethiopian conflict, near Gashena in the Amhara region. Reuters could not verify his location.

The enemy is defeated. Our main task is to rout the enemy and destroy them, he told soldiers assembled under a clump of trees.

Abiy, whose army has been fighting for more than a year in the northern region of Tigray, said he was going to the frontline last week to supervise operations. State media reported over the weekend that the army recaptured the town of Chifra in the Afar region and other areas after Abiy arrived. There was no way to verify the announcement by Reuters. Tigrayan youth are falling like leaves. Abiy, a Nobel Peace laureate, said they should know they have been defeated and surrendered starting from today.

Getachew Reda, the spokesman for the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front TPLF, could not be reached for comment.

On Monday, Reda accused Abiy of engaging in farcical war games. Tigrayan forces have threatened to push into the capital Addis Ababa or to cut a corridor linking landlocked Ethiopia with the region's largest port.

The TPLF dominated national politics until Abiy took power in 2018. The war in northern Ethiopia has killed thousands of people and displaced millions in Africa's second most populous nation since the conflict began a year ago.

Tigrayan forces were initially beaten back, but recaptured most of the region in July and pushed into Amhara and Afar, displacing hundreds of thousands more people.