Fano Leader Zemene Kassie Announces Seven-Faction Rebel Alliance to Remove Abiy Ahmed

Amhara Fano National Movement chairman Zemene Kassie told the Swiss daily Le Temps that seven to eight months of negotiations with at least seven other armed factions -- including groups from Tigray, Oromia, the Somali region, Benishangul-Gumuz, and Sudan-based forces -- had concluded in a unified command whose immediate objective is removing Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, with a longer-term goal of building a post-Abiy political order. Kassie claimed Fano fields hundreds of thousands of fighters, controls over 80% of rural Amhara, and has engaged ten of Ethiopia's thirteen federal military commands, while accusing the federal government of indiscriminate drone strikes on schools and monasteries using Turkish-built aircraft with alleged UAE financing. Analysts describe the alliance as unprecedented given that Amhara and Tigrayan forces fought each other from 2020-2022 and still have unresolved territorial disputes (e.g. Tselemt), but caution that no signed framework or joint command structure has been publicly released and that named parties, including the TPLF and OLA, have not independently confirmed participation.