Can Ethiopia’s seven-group rebel alliance challenge Abiy Ahmed?

Two days after seven Ethiopian armed groups announced the formation of the Ethiopian Peoples’ Forces Alliance for Survival and pledged to remove Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, a senior official of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) was asked whether the statement amounted to a declaration of war.He hesitated, then answered with a question of his own.“We are at war now, aren’t we?”He was speaking to Kjetil Tronvoll, professor of peace and conflict studies at Oslo New University College, who told Al Jazeera that the answer captured what the new rebel alliance had changed.It has not created a single, coherent military force capable of marching on Addis Ababa. It has brought several of Ethiopia’s separate conflicts into the same political framework and, potentially, into the same military calculation.The question now is how much further that can spread and whether seven movements with different enemies, territorial claims and histories can actually fight as one.On Tuesday, drones struck two schools in Alamata, in southern Tigray, and the town’s mayor said 14 civilians were killed and 22 wounded. The account could not be independently verified, and the federal government did not im...