Washington — Monday's military coup in Sudan crippled the nation's leadership and could have sweeping regional implications, including inflaming already bitter disputes among Sudan's neighbors, analysts say.

"I would say key in today's considerations really are questions of the ongoing conflict between Egypt and Ethiopia and Sudan over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam," said Jonas Horner, a senior analyst and Sudan expert at the International Crisis Group.

The longstanding dispute over Ethiopia's hydroelectric dam stems from Ethiopia's insistence on building and filling the dam to help alleviate poverty in the country, and Egypt and Sudan's opposition to it, Horner said.

Egypt favors military rule in Sudan, while Ethiopia will likely back a civilian transition in hopes that the potential for improved relations will move the needle on the dam, Horner told VOA.

"Egypt is very keen to see a military dispensation in Sudan because they believe that they will take care of their interests best when it comes to representing Egyptian concerns over the dam," Horner said.

The coup in Sudan could also affect Ethiopia's ongoing crisis in the Tigray region, which is spreading and has seen a recent escalation. The Ethiopian government may have cause to worry if the Sudan military remains in power, Horner said.

"The concern is that the military, if it is indeed in the ascendancy and there is no mediation from civilians, that they will more robustly perhaps support the Tigrayans as they fight against the central government in Addis Ababa," he said.

The United Nations and the African Union condemned the military takeover. The Norwegian Refugee Council issued a statement Monday appealing to Sudan's rulers to protect civilians and keep commitments to allow humanitarian aid to reach millions of people affected by war.

Monday's military takeover was triggered by a fear that the military was losing control over Sudan's Sovereign Council as the deadline for transfer to civilian rule was approaching, analysts said.

Khartoum was in political and social chaos after Sudan's military chief, Lieutenant General Abdel-Fattah Burhan, declared a state of emergency and dissolved the joint civilian-military council that has run the country for the past two years.

Protesters took to the streets, derisively chanting Burhan's name and singing Sudan's national anthem.

Medical sources say dozens of people have been injured in the protests, and at least seven people died in clashes with security forces in Khartoum amid an internet and telecommunications shutdown.

With Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and other officials of the ruling Sovereign Council in detention, the future of the nation's leadership is in turmoil.

"I think the thing that the military was most fearful of losing (was) control of the Sovereignty Council -- the executive authority in the country," said Cameron Hudson, a senior fellow at the U.S.-based Atlantic Council's Africa Center.

Internal pressure from hundreds of thousands of protesters who came out from different towns across Sudan in recent weeks demanding civilian rule made Sudan's top military leader feel "under siege," Hudson said.

"This is a reaction internally to release the pressure that they were feeling," Hudson told VOA.

The coup seems to have the backing of the Sudan Armed Forces and a paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces under General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, some analysts said.

But Hudson warned that the army might be divided on this.

"What we don't know and what we should be fearful of is there are divisions within the military, especially in the younger ranks, the lower ranks of the military," he said. "We should not be surprised if we see a counter coup of some kind of younger military officers who push back against what happened."

The military takeover looks hurried and poorly planned, according to Hudson, and may have dangerous consequences, including street violence, which escalated Monday.

"It's a very dangerous situation, because you have the military trying to assert its control, and now you have people taking to the streets in protest," he said.

Sudan's neighbors are watching closely, possibly fearing a spillover effect, Horner said.

"There are plenty of autocratic governments that are in Sudan's immediate neighborhood and then even across the Red Sea and elsewhere, too, who will concern themselves with what inspiring effect a successful civilian transition might have to their own populations," he said.

VOA's Kathleen Dawson contributed to this report.

Read the original article on VOA.

Reports from the field say the Tigray forces have held off the first wave of the new federal offensive and may be gaining ground

Into the hell of war, again

21ST OCTOBER 2021

Copyright © Africa Confidential 2021

In the run-up to the first year’s anniversary of the war in Tigray, no clear victor has emerged and there is a high risk that the conflict, devastating lives and the economy, could rumble on for many more months with each side claiming periodic breakthroughs.

Hopes that Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed‘s election victory, alongside the country’s falling economic growth and investment, might prompt a serious bid to open negotiations with the Tigrayan leaders have been thwarted again.

Both sides are digging in for a more drawn-out fight. After restocking the army, recruiting and training thousands of new soldiers, and importing military supplies from overseas allies, the Ethiopian National Defence Force launched a new offensive against the Tigray Defence Forces (TDF) in the first week of October. The Tigray forces claim to have thrown back the offensive, destroyed entire divisions of ENDF soldiers and inflicted thousands of casualties on ‘human wave’ attacks, according to General Tadesse Werede Tesfay, the TDF commander, speaking on Tigray state television on 16 October. A further official statement on 18 October by Tigray spokesperson Getachew Reda claimed that the ENDF had collapsed entirely and no longer existed as an organised force.

The Tigrayans also claim that Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has secretly contacted them for negotiations. The government in Addis Ababa has not released its account of how the offensive has fared or commented on these claims.

The TDF appears to have made critical gains in the Wollo area, eastern Amhara. If these reports are correct, the rebels will have added to the pressure on Abiy’s administration to make peace.

Attacks by the Ethiopian Air Force on TDF positions opened Abiy’s new offensive on 11 October, followed by a ground offensive. After defending strongly, Tadesse said, the TDF counter-attacked, occupying high ground to the north of Dessie, and taking the town of Chifra, which is 27 miles from the main Addis Ababa-Djibouti road, a vital transport artery, and inflicting enormous casualties.

International organisations are backing the mission of the African Union’s new special envoy to the Horn, Nigeria‘s former President Olusegun Obasanjo, who is expected to get mediation under way.

United States President Joe Biden is ready to impose sanctions on federal, Amhara, Tigray and Eritreancommanders if fighting does not cease and humanitarian aid is not allowed to reach affected populations (AC Dispatches 7/9/21, Nigeria’s Olusegun Obasanjo takes on mediating role in war as brickbats fly on both sides). The US sanctions could target military commanders, government officials and state institutions. Even the national carrier, Ethiopian Airlines – which US cable news networks accused of transporting arms – could be targeted. European governments want to keep channels open to Abiy’s new government, while urging moderation, of which there is little sign in Addis Ababa (see accompanying feature, Abiy’s war party digs in).

As the TDF fights the ENDF, the rebellious Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) has opened a new front against the federal government in the south (AC Dispatches 16/8/21, A nightmare scenario for Premier Abiy Ahmed as regional opponents coordinate against the federal government). A Tigrayan official said they have been co-ordinating their attacks with the OLA, which clashed with the government forces and Amhara militias in southern Oromia on 4 October. Affected areas include West and North Shewa, near Addis Ababa.

Abiy had been telling Western diplomats that no peace efforts could be made until his new government took office, but they believed this was only intended to buy time before the launch of the latest offensive.

On 5 October, ENDF formations approached Gashena, which lies on the main road west of the TDF-occupied city of Weldiya, but the TDF, which holds the high ground around Arbit and Bego Chereka, west of Gashena, was able to throw them back, security sources said. Gashena lies close to the world-famous rock churches of Lalibela, also controlled by the TDF. As of 17 October, fighting continued around the town, with ENDF units receiving air support, the sources added. The Tigrayans claim that they mounted devastating ambushes on the federal forces (AC Vol 62 No 18, Lies, damned lies and statistics).

Counter-attacks
Tadesse, who once headed the UN Interim Security Force for Abyei, a flashpoint of conflict between Sudan and South Sudan, said that initially federal forces cut the Weldiya-Debre Tabor road at Hamusit village, leaving TDF forces in Gashena potentially exposed, but this ‘challenging’ offensive was eventually repulsed by TDF counter-attacks. ‘We were then able to completely destroy the four divisions that were in the area,’ he said. An ENDF infantry and mechanised convoy proceeding through Wurgessa and Wichale, adjacent to each other on the north-south main road that links Weldiya to Dessie, was ambushed by the TDF and dispersed.

Tadesse said the TDF controlled Bizen, the highest mountain in the Ambassel range, where peaks reach over 3,200 metres above sea level. Around Wegel Tena, between Gashena and Wichale, federal ‘human wave’ attacks had been taking place on 16 October, and around Geregera, he said. He said the corpses of the federal soldiers lay so thick on the ground that he was reluctant to let video footage be shown. He said he had never seen such horrendous losses in his entire military career.

The TDF claimed to have taken both Wegel Tena and Wichale on 17 October, and said it was poised to capture Dessie and Kombolcha. Ten miles south-east of Dessie, Kombolcha and its major fuel depot is a strategic objective. There have been suggestions, not from the TDF, of further TDF incursions towards Dessie, and unconfirmed reports that the ENDF was withdrawing from the city.

North of Chifra, on the Amhara-Afar border, the TDF has also been in action against the ENDF, the security sources say, and controls the Agamsa and Boren hills, where the highlands descend to the flatter ground of Afar. ENDF has been firing heavy artillery and ordering drone strikes in these areas. As the fighting intensified 10 fuel trucks heading from the Afar capital of Semera to the Tigrayan capital of Mekelle via Abala were turned back.

ENDF ambitions to control vantage points between Weldiya and Gashena, such as Ambassel, Weshebo, Kon and Geregera, have been stopped but officially the command is blaming ‘unanticipated circumstances and logistical bottlenecks’, security sources said. ENDF reportedly lost 13 armoured personnel carriers and almost 1,000 troops, with another 900 missing. Horrendous as these losses have been, neither side says that it thinks a breaking point in the conflict will come any time soon. More hopeful voices in Tigray suggest that Abiy’s flair for unpredictability, as well as growing internal pressures, might prompt him to make enough political concessions to unlock the first stage of some negotiations