Protesters in Barcelona set fires, built barricades and hurled projectiles as violence erupted at a housing protest. Affordable housing is a key issue in Spain and the prime minister has called for snap elections after parliament rejected a new law expanding renter protections.
Published On 6 Oct 20266 Oct 2026
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“They’ve begun an offensive around southern Tigray,” Abdisalam Balema, a member of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front’s (TPLF) central committee, told Al Jazeera by phone from Mekelle, the Tigrayan capital, on Wednesday morning.
“They’re carrying out strikes in many places. We are not sure of the extent of it or whether they will continue, but we will assess it.”
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Balema did not know it then, but he was describing the start of a major military escalation.
Fighting intensified across parts of Tigray and later spread to the neighbouring Afar and Amhara regions, pitting federal forces against several armed groups. A day later, Balema told Al Jazeera that the situation had become a “full war”.
The Tigray Army said the federal government had launched a “full-scale offensive” involving infantry, mechanised units and drones, and said its forces had begun counteroffensive operations.
Getachew Reda, a former senior TPLF figure who now advises Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, gave the opposite account of how the fighting began, accusing the TPLF of launching the attack.
The escalation disrupted air travel, as Tigrayan forces seized airports in the region and Ethiopian Airlines suspended flights across Tigray. Local reports also said they had captured Abala, a district capital in neighbouring Afar.
Amid the competing accounts of how the escalation began, the immediate question may now be whether Ethiopia has crossed into a wider conflict.
The intensification came days after seven armed movements from across Ethiopia, including the TPLF, announced the formation of the Ethiopian Peoples’ Forces Alliance for Survival, which committed itself to removing Abiy’s government.
The coalition has brought together the Amhara Fano National Movement and the Oromo Liberation Army, alongside other movements from Somali, Afar and Benishangul-Gumuz areas.
The alliance marked a striking realignment that had been almost a year in the making, bringing together movements with very different histories and grievances against the central government, including forces with bitter histories of conflict among themselves.
In a statement issued as the fighting widened on Wednesday, the alliance said the federal government was attacking its member forces on several fronts and presented their response as part of the broader struggle that had brought the coalition together.
The regional East African bloc IGAD called for hostilities to cease and direct dialogue to resume, while the United Nations has expressed concern over the formation of the new armed coalition and reports of drone attacks.
About three-quarters of a million people were already internally displaced in Tigray because of the earlier war, according to UN migration data.
The alliance grew out of the political realignment that followed the Pretoria agreement, which ended the two-year Tigray war in November 2022. The deal brought peace between Addis Ababa and the TPLF, but fractured the coalition Abiy had assembled to fight the war.
Neither Eritrea nor Amhara forces, whose troops had fought alongside the federal army, were parties to the final agreement, and both later fell out with the federal government.
In Amhara, tensions over plans to dismantle regional forces helped trigger open conflict between the Ethiopian government and Fano fighters, organised under the Amhara Fano National Movement, in 2023. Relations with Eritrea also deteriorated, first over the Pretoria settlement and later over Abiy’s push for access to the Red Sea through Eritrean ports.
The Pretoria agreement also deepened divisions within the TPLF, between figures such as Reda, who continued to defend the settlement, and a faction led by Debretsion Gebremichael that increasingly rejected the political order it had created.
Pretoria “changed the equation”, Faisal Roble, a regional analyst and member of the East African Parliament, told Al Jazeera. “Abiy alienated all of them at different levels.”
The faction led by Debretsion later seized power in Tigray and repaired relations with former enemies, including Fano fighters in Amhara and Eritrea, upending the alliances that had defined the previous war.
The government’s spokeswoman, Billene Seyoum, told the Reuters news agency after the new coalition was announced that its members had already been collaborating with financial backing from Asmara and that the formal declaration confirmed statements by government officials.
Eritrea has repeatedly denied supporting Ethiopian armed groups.
Reda had dismissed the alliance’s chances of ousting the government shortly after it was announced. “I don’t lose sleep over that,” he told state media this week.
“Now it [the TPLF] goes back to the drawing board, and declares Pretoria dead and starts an alliance with the very people who fell out with the federal government because Pretoria was signed,” he added.
Balema, the senior TPLF official, said the party’s decision to join those former enemies reflected its determination not to find itself isolated if the conflict widened again.
“We’ve been forced to ally with other movements who also face an existential threat from the government,” he told Al Jazeera. “We don’t want a repeat of 2020 when we were encircled and alone.”
Balema acknowledged unresolved disputes within the alliance, including competing claims over western Tigray involving Amhara forces, but said the groups had agreed to address them through dialogue.
“We have a political charter, and our aim is to remove the personalist regime of Abiy Ahmed, establish a transitional government, hold a constitutional dialogue and move to elections,” he added, saying “the alliance is in consensus on this.”
“For now it seems like it will work, but when the deeper issues need to be resolved it will test their different constituencies, who have different expectations,” Mohamed Kheir Omer, a researcher focused on the Horn of Africa, told Al Jazeera.
“But right now it isn’t the urgent issue.”
The alliance also draws in the Oromo Liberation Army and a faction of the Ogaden National Liberation Front, movements rooted in older demands for autonomy and self-determination among Ethiopia’s Oromo and Somali populations.
Both had fought the TPLF-dominated government that preceded Abiy and are now allied with the TPLF. Taking office in 2018, promising a break with the old order, Abiy sought to bring both into civilian politics.
The Oromo Liberation Front returned from exile, but disagreements over disarmament left part of its armed wing outside the settlement.
Those fighters continued their armed conflict as the Oromo Liberation Army, and subsequent peace talks with the government failed.
Though the OLA ultimately signed the new alliance agreement, its leader, Jaal Marroo, had described it in the preceding days as a “procedural consensus” rather than a substantive settlement on Ethiopia’s political future.
The ONLF stayed out of armed conflict after its own 2018 peace deal, but later fractured. An overseas faction accuses the government of failing to implement the agreement and eroding Somali autonomy, while the leadership inside Ethiopia’s Somali region denies joining the new alliance.
Abdulkadir Hassan Hirmoge, a spokesperson for the faction that joined, told Al Jazeera that it now regards the 2018 agreement as void.
He said joining the alliance did not mean restarting an armed struggle, but backing its programme of removing Abiy and establishing a transitional government.
Ethiopia’s domestic conflicts are becoming harder to separate from wider rivalries in the Horn, particularly Sudan’s civil war and Addis Ababa’s deteriorating relationship with Eritrea.
Sudan’s army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan has visited Asmara twice since July for talks with Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki, while Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, the commander of Sudan’s rival Rapid Support Forces, reportedly visited Addis Ababa in late August.
Reuters reported in February that thousands of RSF fighters were being trained at a camp in western Ethiopia, while Sudan has accused Ethiopia, and its ally the United Arab Emirates, which also reportedly backs the RSF, of allowing drones to be launched from its territory into Sudan.
The emerging Ethiopian opposition alignment has touched the same regional network.
Several figures associated with groups now in the alliance attended a meeting in Port Sudan in May, publicly presented as a “people-to-people” initiative.
In July, Abiy told lawmakers: “Let alone Eritrea, the TPLF and Sudan, even if others were added, we do not have an iota of fear regarding Ethiopia’s sovereignty.”
Balema, the senior TPLF official, denied that the alliance was receiving military or logistical support from either Eritrea or Sudan, saying its relationships abroad amounted to political contacts rather than foreign backing.
“We didn’t create the current problem with Eritrea; Abiy did with his demands on its ports, and the same with Somalia,” he said.
“In Sudan, he is now supporting the Rapid Support Forces. He has created his own enemies across the region and we are just picking up the pieces.”
Sudan has recently sought to ease tensions with Addis Ababa. Malik Agar, the second in command of its military-aligned government, said last week that “we do not want to get involved in a war with Ethiopia.”
Jawar Mohammed, an Oromo opposition politician, warned that Ethiopia could nevertheless become an “incongruent battlefield” in which wider regional contests increasingly play out.
“These things are impossible to control,” he said.
TORONTO — Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is heading to Europe in the middle of a trade war with President Trump, seeking a deeper relationship with the European Union that could give Canadians greater freedom to work and study there.
Canada will seek an arrangement that would allow Canadians to live and work in Europe without visas as part of a strategic partnership, according to a senior Canadian official familiar with the discussions.
The official said Ottawa is not seeking to replicate the arrangements Norway or Switzerland have with the EU and did not propose “associate membership,” a term used in a recent report. Canada instead wants a partnership tailored to its priorities, with investment at its core.
Roughly 70% of Canadian exports go to the United States. Europe is central to Carney’s effort to reduce that dependence.
Carney has ruled out EU membership, saying Canada instead wants “a unique security and economic alliance” with the bloc. He said formal discussions will begin next month.
Economics is only part of the push, Carney said Tuesday. “The core of this, yes, there is an economic component, but it is about greater sovereignty,” he said.
Canadian government officials have consulted provinces and labor groups but have not settled on what form the relationship should take. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the talks publicly.
Carney will attend European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s State of the Union address Wednesday as a guest of honor before addressing the European Parliament on Thursday.
Carney cautioned against expecting a major announcement in Europe, saying the “real deepening discussions” will begin at the Canada-EU summit in Montreal in late October.
The trip puts him back on the European stage as relations with Washington reel from tariffs, threats and personal attacks since trade talks collapsed.
Carney said Tuesday that economic integration, once viewed largely as an asset, is increasingly “being used as a weapon by certain countries,” making it more important for Canada to deepen ties with trusted partners. He is also carrying to Europe a message that has won praise there but that European governments have been reluctant to follow in dealing with the United States: Middle powers should resist economic coercion and be willing to walk away from a bad deal.
Carney’s Davos speech on middle powers in January drew a personal rebuke from Trump, and another forceful defense could raise the temperature again.
Canada has retaliated against U.S. tariffs and rejected terms Carney says would weaken its sovereignty. Europe, by contrast, shelved retaliation and accepted a deal leaving most EU exports to the U.S. facing tariffs of up to 15%.
That choice is striking given the EU’s economic weight as the world’s largest trading bloc.
At Davos in January, Carney urged middle powers to band together rather than bow to great powers. When countries negotiate alone with a hegemon, he said, “we negotiate from weakness. We accept what is offered.”
“This is not sovereignty,” Carney said. “It is the performance of sovereignty while accepting subordination.”
In a European Parliament debate in March, French lawmaker Chloe Ridel said Carney had “said out loud what many Europeans think quietly,” while German lawmaker Tobias Cremer urged Europe to “show the same courage as the Canadians have done in this moment of rupture.”
Tobias Gehrke of the European Council on Foreign Relations said Europe accepted economic pain in hopes of preserving U.S. support for NATO and Ukraine, but gained neither firm security commitments nor stable ties with Washington.
“European governments will be watching closely to see whether retaliation creates leverage or simply produces more escalation and an increasing bill,” Gehrke said.
Canadian Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne rejected the idea that Canada’s push toward Europe is simply an effort to gain leverage over Washington, saying Ottawa intends to keep working with the United States even as it builds stronger partnerships elsewhere.
“It’s always about us,” Champagne told the Associated Press. “We will still do things with the United States.”
But Champagne also said the geopolitical landscape has fundamentally shifted. “The world has changed and America has changed,” he said. “And I think the world has taken notice.”
Carney’s trip follows his global investment summit in Toronto, part of a broader push to attract international capital and reduce dependence on the United States.
Canada and the EU already cooperate on trade, defense, energy, technology and critical minerals. Bilateral trade reached about $147 billion in 2025, making the EU Canada’s second-largest trading partner.
Underscoring the push for closer ties, the European Parliament said Monday that it will open an office in Ottawa, its 10th outside the EU, with a regional mandate extending to the Arctic.
“At a time when the world is becoming more unpredictable, like-minded partners need to work even more closely together,” European Parliament President Roberta Metsola said.
Canada this year became the first non-European country to join the EU’s $173-billion SAFE defense program, giving Canadian companies access to joint procurement.
Ian Lesser of the German Marshall Fund in Brussels said Trump’s tariffs and policies toward the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and his stated intention to acquire Greenland for the U.S. have accelerated efforts by Canada and Europe to diversify their economic and security ties.
“The sheer unpredictability emanating from Washington has given history a shove,” Lesser said. He said many in Brussels still prefer to accommodate Washington or “wait and see” whether November’s midterm elections produce a Congress able to constrain Trump.
Carney will also travel to Britain to meet Prime Minister Andy Burnham for the first time. Both men are supporters of Everton soccer club and are expected to meet at the team’s League Cup match against Wolverhampton on Wednesday.
Gillies writes for the Associated Press. AP reporter Sam McNeil in Brussels contributed to this report.
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The front month contract on Brent crude, the international standard for oil prices, crossed $100 per barrel again on Wednesday morning while the US standard, WTI, hovered around $95.
Prices have risen almost 20% since the middle of last week as fighting around the world’s most important oil chokepoint has once again intensified.
It is also the first time since 23 July that oil has hit the $100 mark.
US Central Command said its forces destroyed five Iranian tankers carrying crude oil on 8 September after Iran’s Revolutionary Guard fired ballistic missiles at a US Navy warship twice within two days. The command did not identify the ship, but said it was not hit and continued patrolling regional waters.
It followed a similar strike on 5 September, when Iranian forces fired ballistic missiles at a US aircraft carrier and a destroyer, both of which evaded the attack. The command responded by disabling or destroying three Iranian tankers.
Tehran retaliated by firing missiles at a US military base in Jordan, where air defences intercepted most of them, and renewed threats to target tankers in Kuwaiti and Bahraini waters.
Iran has also repeatedly warned vessels against using unauthorised routes through the Strait of Hormuz.
Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said Tehran would soon declare an exclusion zone outside the strait, warning that any vessel entering without Iranian coordination would be added to a sanctions list.
Saudi Arabia has been drawn in too, with Aramco facilities at Jazan attacked again on Monday, though damage was reported as limited.
Roughly 7 million barrels a day are still moving through the Strait of Hormuz, against about 20 million before the war began on 28 February.
The military escalation is running alongside a financial one.
Washington launched Operation Economic Outcast in late August, an effort to sever Iran from the global financial system by targeting its access to digital assets, technology, gold, aviation and shipping.
The US Treasury designated close to 60 companies, individuals and vessels at the outset and has signalled fresh measures weekly, with the European Union endorsing the campaign this month.
Rhetoric on both sides has hardened.
US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said the country “will destroy [and sink]” Iranian oil tankers if Iran fires on American vessels while the Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf replied by stating “strike our assets and you get struck”.
US President Donald Trump has continued to insist the waterway is functioning, posting on Truth Social last week that “Hormuz volumes are BACK” and claiming 18 million barrels a day were flowing.
However, the US Energy Secretary Chris Wright put Monday’s figure at 17 million barrels of crude and products combined, while acknowledging the multi-day rolling average is considerably lower.
During last week’s White House press conference, US Vice President JD Vance also declined to categorise the ongoing conflict as a war and stated that “the only reason we do not have a worldwide energy crisis is because of the leadership of the President.”
Faced with the latest developments, analysts are adjusting upward.
Goldman Sachs raised its Brent and WTI forecasts by $5 on Monday to $85 and $80, respectively, for December and warned prices could exceed $120 next year should Gulf output remain 4 million barrels a day below pre-war levels, though the bank does not treat that as its base case.