Tigray People's Liberation Front*
*
By the end of 1976, insurgencies existed in all of Ethiopia's fourteen administrative regions. In addition to the Eritrean secessionists, rebels were highly active in Tigray, where the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), formed in 1975, was demanding social justice and self-determination for all Ethiopians.*
*
From 1977, Eritrean and Tigrayan insurgents began to cooperate. The EPLF providing training and equipment that helped build the TPLF into a full-fledged fighting force.*
*
In March 1988, the TPLF preempted a pending Ethiopian offensive in Tigray with a series of attacks on government positions there in early March. A government attack against central Tigray failed disastrously, with four Ethiopian army divisions reportedly destroyed and most of their equipment captured. In early April, the TPLF took the town of Adigrat in northern Tigray, cutting the main road link between Addis Ababa and Eritrea.*
*
The March 1988 defeats of the Ethiopian army were catastrophic in terms of their magnitude and crippling in their effect on government strategy in Eritrea and Tigray. The capability of government forces in both regions collapsed as a result.*