Strategic Ethiopia Towns Captured, Tigrean Rebels Say

Tigrean rebels who have been making steady gains against the government claimed Sunday to have captured several strategic towns. There were reports of fierce fighting north and west of the capital.

Western sources said the fighting has again closed off a vital road from Addis Ababa to the only major port still under government control, jeopardizing efforts to feed millions of drought victims in the Horn of Africa nation.

The United Nations suspended a trucking operation that was bringing food and other supplies from the port, Assab, to drought victims.

The road to Assab had been cut off by the rebels Friday, then reportedly reopened by a government counterattack on Saturday.

Several Western diplomats in the capital said the new offensive appears aimed at boosting the rebels’ bargaining position with President Mengistu Haile Mariam’s government at talks scheduled for May 27 in London May 27.

“It ups the pressure on the government to talk and not to do a stalling number,” said one diplomat.

The U.S.-brokered peace talks seek to resolve the fighting before it reaches the capital.

Since launching an offensive Feb. 23, the Tigrean Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front has made steady gains. Together with Eritrean rebels, insurgents now control the northern third of Ethiopia.

The Tigreans won control of two northwestern provinces and significant chunks of three other regions before the latest claims. They already controlled their home province of Tigre, won in late 1989.

In a clandestine radio broadcast Sunday, the insurgents said they have captured Dessye, the capital of Wollo province, the nearby town of Kombolcha and Ambo, 65 miles west of Addis Ababa.

The road runs north from Addis Ababa to Dessye, then branches northeastward to Assab, 380 miles northeast of the capital. The port handles about 70% of Ethiopia’s imports and exports and contains the country’s only oil refinery.

The rebels first took Ambo late last month, then withdrew in the face of a government counterattack.

The claims could not be independently confirmed, but the rebels have not in the past claimed to capture any towns they have not actually taken.

In an unusual broadcast, government radio acknowledged that Ethiopian troops were heavily engaged in and around Dessye and Ambo but made no mention of the fall of either.