Ethiopian drones hit Eritrean troops near Adigrat, witnesses and a conflict monitor say, as Addis Ababa demands that foreign forces leave

Soldiers ride on a truck in a photo that the open-source analyst AfriMEOSINT posted on X on October 7, 2026, saying footage circulating that day purportedly showed Eritrean troops crossing into Ethiopia and entering Idaga Hamus in Tigray. [file photo] Photo: AfriMEOSINT (@AfriMEOSINT) on X

Ethiopian drones struck Eritrean troops and ammunition around the Tigrayan city of Adigrat overnight into Thursday, the conflict monitor ACLED and witnesses said, AFP reported.

“There were many, many drone strikes yesterday. Some Eritrean lorries have been destroyed. They are no longer in the streets,” one witness in Adigrat told AFP on condition of anonymity, and another resident said they heard a “massive explosion during the night.” ACLED said “Eritrean troops and ammunition” in the Adigrat area were hit by “multiple drone strikes” between Wednesday and Thursday. A senior Ethiopian army commander, who also asked not to be named, told AFP there were “small pockets of the enemy forces still resisting and trying to create trouble.”

Enatalem Melese, the Minister of Government Communication Services, demanded that the troops leave, saying “All foreign military forces operating within our sovereign territory must withdraw immediately,” according to Bloomberg and The National. BBC Amharic said the statement amounted to the Gov’t’s confirmation of the reports and came within a day of the BBC and other media reporting that Eritrean soldiers had entered Ethiopia.

Jalale Getachew Birru, the East Africa analyst at ACLED, told The National that Eritrean troops crossed the border at Zalambessa and headed for the road between Adigrat and Idaga Hamus, and that “Ethiopian National Defence Forces drones targeted Eritrean troops at Guada as they travelled by vehicle towards Idaga Hamus.” The analyst said Eritrea is suspected of backing the Alliance for Survival, the seven-group armed coalition that includes the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), because it was unhappy with the 2022 Pretoria agreement and because it wants to turn Tigray into a buffer zone that is hostile to Addis Ababa. Gebreigziabher Beyene, the commander of the Tigray Peace Force, which fights alongside federal troops, told AFP, according to The National, that Eritrea is “deliberately deploying its forces so that the fighting takes place inside Tigray rather than spilling into Eritrea.” A Tigray Peace Force commander who asked not to be named told DW Amharic that Eritrean troops traveling in two trucks from Idaga Hamus toward Atsbi Wenberta were hit by a drone at a place called Idaga Arbi, a claim that DW said it could not independently verify.

A resident of Adigrat told BBC Amharic that the Eritrean force was large. “There are more than 40 vehicles. There could be 50 to 100 soldiers in each vehicle, and many also passed on foot,” the resident said. A resident of Idaga Hamus said the troops had artillery, tanks, ZU-23 guns and mortars, and that soldiers were unloading their trucks in the town and “taking donkeys from farmers by force” before moving off in different directions. The same resident had heard that the troops were hit by drones but was not sure, and told the BBC that women in the town were afraid because of what happened to them in the last war. “We don’t know what we did to the world. It has ignored us. We are Ethiopians too,” the resident said. “As if the drought, the hunger and the displacement were not enough, it seems we are entering another round of war.”

Eritrea’s Minister of Information, Yemane Gebremeskel (@hawelti), did not address the drone strikes, according to Natna News. Yemane had denied to Reuters on Wednesday that Eritrean forces were in Adigrat. In a long post on X on Wednesday, he wrote that “the Potemkin Party regime has been incessantly beating the drums of war” against Eritrea to gain access to the sea, and that its “overarching objective is to create a fallacious narrative of ‘self-defense’ to rationalize and camouflage its war of aggression.” He quoted an unnamed senior Ethiopian general as saying, “Mekelle is a mere stop-over, our ultimate destination is Assab,” without saying when or where the general said it. AFP reported that he also accused Ethiopia of “openly working to bring about regime change in Eritrea.” Earlier this month Ethiopia expelled 10 Eritrean diplomats and closed its embassy in Asmara, and Eritrea responded by cutting diplomatic ties.

Tom Gardner, the Africa correspondent of The Economist, shared the magazine’s new report on X on Thursday, which says that the two countries “now look to be closer to a direct conflict than at any time since 1998-2000, when they fought a war which killed tens of thousands.” Jawar Mohammed, a member of the Oromo Federalist Congress, wrote on X that Reuters, AFP, BBC and DW had now reported Eritrean troops moving deeper into Ethiopia, and added, “This increasingly looks less like defensive positioning and more like an attempt to halt the federal advance, create military space for the TPLF and push ENDF southward.” The news anchor Mesay Mekonnen (@mamamesay) argued differently in a long Amharic post, saying that Abiy Ahmed’s claim that Ethiopia was invaded is a last attempt “to drag Eritrea in” and rally Ethiopians behind him, and adding that Abiy Ahmed should remember his own words from four years ago: “What would have become of us if the Eritreans had not come to our aid?”

The US Embassy in Addis Ababa said in a security alert on Wednesday that it “is aware of reports of possible long-range attacks directed at Ethiopian military installations on several instances in October,” and it told US citizens not to travel to the Amhara region, including Lalibela, or to Tigray or Afar “for any reason.” The open-source analyst AfriMEOSINT (Rich Tedd) reported on X on Thursday that Sudan’s army chief, General Abdel Fattah Burhan, visited the 11th Infantry Division headquarters at Khashm El Griba near the borders with Eritrea and Tigray on Wednesday, and that cargo flights by Il-76 aircraft from the United Arab Emirates to Ethiopia were continuing.

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Ethiopian drones hit Eritrean troops near Adigrat, witnesses and a conflict monitor say, as Addis Ababa demands that foreign forces leave

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