Abiy Ahmed claims in the footage that the war was ‘being conducted with a high level of success’

A state-affiliated Ethiopian TV channel has broadcast footage purporting to show the country’s Nobel peace prize-winning prime minister on the battlefront of the country’s year-long war against Tigray forces, four days after he announced he would direct the army from there.

Wearing military uniform, Abiy Ahmed claimed in the footage that the war was “being conducted with a high level of success” and referred to locations on the border between the country’s Amhara and Afar regions, which neighbour Tigray.

Americans and Britons among those detained as part of sweeping arrests critics say are based on ethnicity

American and British citizens have been swept up in Ethiopia’s mass detentions of ethnic Tigrayans under a new state of emergency in the country’s escalating war.

Thousands of Tigrayans in the capital, Addis Ababa, and across Africa’s second most populous country have already been detained amid fears of many more such detentions as authorities ordered landlords to register tenants’ identities with police. Men armed with sticks were seen on some streets as volunteer groups sought out Tigrayans to report them.

Bloc includes Tigray People’s Liberation Front, which has been fighting Abiy Ahmed’s forces for a year

Nine anti-government factions in Ethiopia have said they had formed an alliance amid growing fears that they will attempt to overthrow the government of Abiy Ahmed by marching on the country’s capital, Addis Ababa.

The alliance, the United Front of Ethiopian Federalist and Confederalist Forces, includes Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and brings together members of previously rival ethnic groups, including the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA).

Addis Ababa at risk after fall of Dessie and Kombolcha as PM urges a fight to the death against rebels

The weekend seizure of two key towns on the main road to Addis Ababa has alarmed Ethiopian leaders who fear that the rapid advances by Tigrayan rebel forces may soon threaten the capital itself.

The sudden push into the towns of Dessie and Kombolcha was accompanied by short bursts of intense fighting that had reportedly subsided by Monday evening. While Dessie was confirmed to have fallen to the rebels on Sunday, the fate of Kombolcha was less clear, with accounts of continuing sporadic gunfire.

TPLF fighters say they have captured Dessie, the furthest south they have reached since July

Tigrayan forces said on Saturday that they had seized the strategic town of Dessie in Ethiopia’s Amhara region where tens of thousands of people have sought refuge from an escalation in the conflict.

Fighters with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) had pushed Ethiopian government forces from Dessie and were advancing toward the town of Kombolcha, a TPLF spokesman, Getachew Reda, said by satellite phone from an undisclosed location.

The offensive marks the end of a ceasefire declared in June in a political conflict that has claimed thousands of lives

Tigray forces say Ethiopia’s government has launched its threatened major military offensive against them in an attempt to end a nearly year-old war.

A statement from the Tigray external affairs office alleged hundreds of thousands of Ethiopian “regular and irregular fighters” launched a coordinated assault on several fronts. It blamed Ethiopian forces and those from the country’s Amhara region, where much of the recent fighting has occurred after Tigray forces retook much of their own region in June.

Massacre was perpetrated by fighters loyal to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, officials say

Rebel forces in northern Ethiopia have been accused of killing more than a hundred civilians during fierce battles.

Local government officials said the massacre in a village 6 miles (10km) from the town of Dabat took place just over a week ago and was perpetrated by fighters loyal to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front.