Tigray Defence Forces
From EverybodyWiki Bios & Wiki
| Tigray Defence Forces | |
|---|---|
| ሓይልታት ምክልኻል ትግራይ | |
 | |
 | |
| Motto | ዘይንድይቦ ጎቦ There are no mountains we would not climb |
| Founded | 4 November 2020 |
| Current form | Guerrilla army |
| Headquarters | Central Tigray mountains |
| Leadership | |
| Commander-in-Chief | General Tsadkan Gebretinsa'i[1][2] |
| Manpower | |
| Active personnel | 250,000 (est. Nov 2020)[3] |
| Related articles | |
| History | Tigray War |
The Tigray Defence Forces (Tigrinya: ሓይልታት ምክልኻል ትግራይ, shortened TDF) are a military structure that came into existence during the Tigray War.[4] They consist of a merger of the Special Forces of the Tigray Regional government, soldiers that have defected from the Ethiopian National Defense Force,[3][5] local militia, members of Tigrayan political parties such as the TPLF, National Congress of Great Tigray, Salsay Weyane Tigray, Tigray Independence Party and others[6] together with numerous youth who fled to the mountains.[7][1][8]
The Tigrayan leadership, though driven from power in Mekelle, the region’s capital, has rallied under the banner of the Tigray Defence Forces, an armed resistance group. It is led by the removed Tigrayan leaders and commanded by former high-ranking Ethiopian National Defence Force officers. — International Crisis Group, Ethiopia’s Tigray War: A Deadly, Dangerous Stalemate, [1]
Within the TDF, analysts believe that the relative influence of the TPLF has been weakened, at the benefit of the other, often relatively new, components.[1][8]
Lieutenant General Tsadkan Gebretinsa'i (ENDF commander in chief until 2001) is the current TDF commander in chief.[1][2] Other military commanders of TDF are General Tadesse Werede Tesfay[1] and General Abraha Tesfay (Dinkul).[9]
In 2020-2021, the TDF operates as a guerilla[10] force in the Tigray War. Battle reports are issued by spokesman Gebre Gebretsadik.[11]
References[edit]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 International Crisis Group, 2 April 2021: Ethiopia’s Tigray War: A Deadly, Dangerous Stalemate
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Marks, Simon (22 January 2021). "On 'Rooftop of Africa,' Ethiopia's Troops Hunt Fugitive Former Rulers". The New York Times. Retrieved 3 May 2021.
And the top military commanders of the T.P.L.F. remain at large. Two Western officials and one with the T.P.L.F., who were not authorized to speak publicly, identified Lt. Gen. Tsadkan Gebretensae, a former head of the Ethiopian military, as a senior rebel leader. General Tsadkan led Ethiopia into combat 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 the fight with the newly formed Tigray Defence Forces, battling the Ethiopian army he once commanded.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Fick, Maggie (10 November 2020). "Battle-hardy Tigray back in spotlight as Ethiopia conflict flares". Reuters. Retrieved 3 May 2021.
Tigrayan forces and militia are battle-hardened, have large stocks of military hardware and number up to 250,000 men, experts say. Federal authorities have restricted access to the region, making it hard to verify details of the fighting. However, there are indications that Tigrayans in the powerful Northern Command, which accounts for about half of the federal army’s manpower and its best divisions, are defecting. Local forces are already in control of its headquarters in Mekelle and other army facilities in Tigray, according to a United Nations internal security report seen by Reuters. Ethiopia expert Alex de Waal said Abiy may have underestimated the Tigray leaders’ skills at both politics and war. The Tufts University academic recalled the words of Tsadkan Gebretensae, a Tigrayan who once commanded Ethiopia’s army against Eritrea, in a conversation with him: “War is primarily an intellectual activity"
- ↑ "Ethiopia is fighting 'difficult and tiresome' guerrilla war in Tigray, says PM". The Guardian. 4 April 2021. Retrieved 3 May 2021.
Despite the deployment of Eritrean troops and militia from Ethiopia’s Amhara region, which borders Tigray to the south, most TPLF leaders remain on the run and ICG noted that none were reported captured or killed in February or March. Pro-TPLF fighters have regrouped under the Tigray Defence Forces, an armed movement “led by the removed Tigrayan leaders and commanded by former high-ranking” military officers, ICG said.
- ↑ Walsh, Declan (7 April 2021). "Why Is Ethiopia at War With Itself?". The New York Times. Retrieved 3 May 2021.
As fighting erupted, Tigray officials declared that soldiers from the Northern Command of the Ethiopian military had defected and sided with them.... But although federal forces quickly seized control of Tigray’s main towns, the T.P.L.F. and its armed supporters fled to rural and mountainous areas, where sporadic fighting continued through February.
- ↑ Place St Pierre, 19 April 2021: Guerre civile au Tigré, la situation sur le terrain (Fulvio Beltrami)
- ↑ Ethiopia Insight, 27 April 2021: René Lefort: Ethiopia’s vicious deadlock
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 de Waal, Alex; Gebrehiwot Berhe, Mulugeta (2021-01-27). "Transcript – Call between Mulugeta Gebrehiwot and Alex de Waal 27 January 2021" (PDF). World Peace Foundation. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2021-01-29. Retrieved 2021-05-02. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ Tesfaselam Informer: General Dinkul: The most famous general leading Tigrarian Defence Forces speaks about the war in Tigray
- ↑ Lefort, René (30 April 2021). "Ethiopia's war in Tigray is 'but the tip of the iceberg when it comes to conflicts ravaging the country'". The Africa Report. Retrieved 5 May 2021.
Last year, Tigray’s leaders underestimated their weaknesses. The region’s security forces were swept away in the conventional conflict and largely unprepared to shift to guerrilla warfare after Mekelle was captured on 28 November. Even the grassroots party-state apparatus has vanished. In a 27 March phone discussion with Alex de Waal [Executive Director of the World Peace Foundation and a professor at the Fletcher School, Tufts University], the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) veteran Mulugeta Gebrehiwot, who has joined the armed struggle, said: “the former administration of the TPLF has collapsed… The administrators just ran away.” He added that four and half months after the war started, “there is a zonal army that is organised in several places,” which means this is not the case everywhere in Tigray. The Tigray Defence Forces (TDF) and TPLF leadership have since avoided being wiped out, thanks to the resistance against the ‘invasion’ which has been spontaneously and autonomously built from both the civilian and militia grassroots and among scattered TDF units. The Tigrayans then came back to their age-old structure: the villages’ self-organisation. “The farmers in each locality asked [the administrators] not to return back; they said ‘we don’t need you, we will choose our own,’” said Mulugeta. “So, at the village level, they have a committee of seven, sometimes without any former cadre.” In Tigray, the power pyramid was top-heavy. That top has been broken and is under reconstruction. At this stage, the most solid part of the pyramid lies at its bottom. The main Tigrayan war force now is the village-level popular resistance and the TDF military apparatus, which has been progressively regrouped from the remnants of the regional security forces and defected Tigrayan federal soldiers. This resistance will not be crushed even if the top leaders of the ‘junta’ are killed or captured.
- ↑ MeketeUK, 15 February 2021: Tigray Defence Forces (TDF) completely destroyed the 32 brigade of the Ethiopian Army
This article "Tigray Defence Forces" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Tigray Defence Forces. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.
