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Ethiopia: TPLF to stage-manage and carry out a “terrorist” attack, intelligence sources warn

Photo: Gondar uprising against TPLF regime

By Engidu Woldie | ESAT

Sources close to ESAT disclosed that the TPLF regime in Ethiopia is prepared to carry out deadly attacks that mimics the work of terrorists in cities across the nation and use that as an excuse to squash the growing popular resistance against the regime in the name of fighting Al Shabaab terrorists.

The sources said the TPLF intelligence and security has selected five locations - Adama, Dire Dawa, Gondar, Bahir Dar and Shashemene – to target public places and higher institutions of learning. The plan was to use Somali speaking individuals from the Ethiopian Somali region to carry out attacks at the selected locations, according to the sources.

The sources also said the regime hopes to garner support from Western allies posing as a regional peacekeeper and fighter of terrorism in the Horn of Africa.

Last year there were a number of explosions at colleges in the Oromo region during ongoing protests in the region and at the Grand Anwar Mosque in Addis Ababa as the Ethiopian Muslims staged a protest rally. The government had blamed what it called terrorist elements but failed to corroborate its claims. A bomb blast in the Bole area of the capital killed two in 2013. In 2011 the regime said it had foiled a planned bomb attack by Eritrea at the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa.

Its past records show that the Ethiopian regime has a habit of using deadly tricks of throwing grenades at public gatherings and institutions and put the blame on resistance groups and neighboring Eritrea, in a futile scheme to get them labeled terrorists.

Regarding the 2006 explosion in Addis, the Wikileaks Ethiopia file exposed the diplomatic cable from the US Embassy in Addis reported that “The GoE announced that the bombs went off while being assembled, and that the three dead were terrorists from the outlawed Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) with links to the Oromo National Congress (ONC). An embassy source, as well as clandestine reporting, suggests that the bombing may have in fact been the work of GoE security forces.”

The regime at the time reported that “the bombs were part of a coordinated terror attack by the OLF and Sha'abiya (Eritrea) aimed at disrupting democratic development," according to the cable.

The cable published by the Wikileaks at the time quoted Dr. Merara Gudina as saying that “the deceased had not died while constructing a bomb, but rather at the hands of GoE cadres. Dr. Merera said that the men had been picked up by police a week prior, kept in detention and tortured. He said police then left the men in a house and detonated explosives nearby, killing 3 of them.”

Not coincidentally, political observers believe, the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) issued a report on Monday warning that terrorist attacks from Al Shabaab were not just confined to Somalia but also threatens neighboring countries.

It should be noted that the regime in Ethiopia is a leading member of the regional body, IGAD and the Security Sector Program that launched the 53 page report is led by Ethiopian regime officials.

It remains to be seen if the regime, which is hit hard by ongoing public resistance all across the nation calling for its demise, would once again use its deadly trickeries knowing that its deceits in the past were exposed widely.