UPDATE: TIGRAYAN LEADERS SAY NEW WAR WITH ETHIOPIAN GOVERNMENT HAS BEGUN. (PHOTO).

 Tigrayan leaders say new war with Ethiopian government has begun

Forces from the northern Ethiopian region of Tigray launched a major offensive against the federal government on Wednesday, a senior Ethiopian official said, ​shattering a four-year-old peace deal and threatening a wider regional conflict.

Tigray's leaders said in a statement they had entered a "defensive" war to counter aggression by the federal government, Reuters reported.

A ‌civil war that began in 2020 between the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) and federal forces resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths before the Pretoria Agreement, brokered by the African Union, was signed in November 2022.

The new hostilities follow months of growing animosity between the two sides, capped by Sunday's announcement that the TPLF had formed an alliance with six other armed groups from across Ethiopia aimed at overthrowing Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's government.

The TPLF-led regional administration said there had ​been an "intensification of the invasion conducted through various methods" by Abiy's government against the people of Tigray.

"The Tigray Forces have been instructed to counter the attack and have entered a defensive ​war," it said in a statement.

Getachew Reda, an adviser to Abiy and a former TPLF official, wrote on X that the TPLF had seized control ⁠of federally controlled airports in Tigray and launched an "all-out offensive" against government positions in the neighbouring regions of Afar and Amhara.

"The TPLF politico-military leadership has obviously taken irresponsibility to new heights," he said.