Zegabi

A humanitarian source in Afar told AFP that Ethiopian federal forces fought overnight into Friday, September 25, 2026, to keep Tigrayan fighters from entering the mountain border town of Abala, and that the army used a drone during the pushback, according to reporting by RFI and Arab News. The same source described “heavy fighting overnight” around Abala, which sits on the Tigray-Afar frontier along routes that matter for northern supply lines.

Analysts say the Afar offensive fits a wider pattern from the last northern war, when Tigrayan forces tried to press toward corridors that feed Ethiopia from Djibouti. Edward Bach of Verisk Maplecroft told AFP that the new alliance of armed groups is likely trying to seize settlements beside key infrastructure routes in order to weaken the federal government’s ability to supply its forces. Almost all of Ethiopia’s international trade cargo, including fuel, still moves through Djibouti.

Thursday’s fighting had already spread into Amhara’s North Wollo Zone, including areas around Lalibela, while ACLED listed clashes in Wag Hemra and North Wello where federal-aligned units face the Amhara Fano National Movement and the Tigray Defense Forces. For Amhara communities already living under a multi-year Fano war with Abiy Ahmed’s Regime, overnight battles in neighbouring Afar add another northern pressure point even when the town named in Friday’s wire reports is across the regional border.

The Ethiopian federal government holds a large drone arsenal and a much bigger regular army, AFP noted, while Tigrayan leaders say they are in full-blown war after this week’s airport seizures and cross-border attacks. Casualty figures for the Abala overnight fighting were not published in the Friday humanitarian account, and neither side’s battlefield claims have been independently verified in those reports.