Fano Rebels in Ethiopia Name a Seasoned Colonel as their Military Chief

A seasoned colonel has been selected to lead the military campaigns of Ethiopia's Amhara Fano rebels.

Rebels in Ethiopia's Amhara region say they have chosen a veteran colonel to organize their military operations. 

Fantahun Muhabe, an ex-Ethiopian army officer was officially named as Fano rebels military chief after the central command of the rebels selected him on Friday the second of August 2024. 

The colonel joined the anti-communist regime rebel movement led by Tigreyan Meles Zenawi in 1980s. When the EPRDF rebels took power in 1991 ousting the communist Mengistu Hailemariam regime, he was one of the founding members of the Ethiopian army.

He then fell out with the Tigreyan dominated army and was jailed for 10 years after a court found him guilty of a coup against prime minister Meles Zenawi in 2008.

When the Meles Zenawi regime of TPLF was ousted in 2018 by Oromo prime minister Abiy Ahmed, the colonel and so many Amhara political and military prisoners were released from prison.  

Tensions between Amhara military leaders and prime minister Abiy Ahmed started rising after a wave of genocide like mass killings were committed in Abiy Ahmed's home region Oromoya against Amhara civilians.

The tensions led to the June 2019 killings of Ethiopia's military chief and several senior Amhara generals. Fantahun and other senior Amhara military officers were jailed again by Abiy forces but many left prisons when Abiy consolidated Amhara and Eritrean forces to fight the advancing TPLF army in the two years Tigray civil war.

The colonel has decades of both conventional and guerilla warfare experience and is one of the most senior military commanders in Fano forces. 

The rebels are led by Eskinder Nega, a former journalist and human rights activist, who like the colonel spent decades in prison under both Meles Zenawi and Abiy Ahmed regimes.

The war between Fano rebels and Abiy forces has continued with the same heat for over a year now with no sign of ending anytime soon. 

The rebels say their only aim is to stop the ongoing Amhara genocide across Ethiopia. Tens of thousands of Amhara civilians were massacred by Abiy-aligned forces in Wollega, Arusi, Hararge, Sidama and other parts of west and southern Ethiopia since Abiy came to power.