Ethiopia Military

The Eritrean-Ethiopian War was a border conflict that took place from May 1998 to June 2000. On May 8, a platoon of Eritreans soldier deployed into Badme region.

Fighting escalated to artillery and tank fire leading to four weeks of intense fighting. Ground troops fought on three fronts.

Eritrea claims Ethiopia launched air strikes against Eritrea’s capital Asmara while Ethiopia accused Eritrea of striking first.

The fighting led to huge internal displacement in both countries as civilians fled the war zone. The conflict ended in stalemate and deployment of UNMEE

On October 4, 1935 Fascist Italy invaded Ethiopia. Italian forces were able to defeat the Ethiopian forces in 8 months with superior manpower and advanced weaponry.

In violation of International agreements, the Italians used poisonous gas in a number of battles.

Second Italo-Abyssinian War and the Mukden Incident is often seen as a precursor to World War II, and a demonstration of the ineffectiveness of the League.

After years of occupation, Emperor Haile Sellasie with the help of the British, led a large Ethiopian front to defeat the Italian army in 1941.

The Ethiopian Civil War (1974-1991) began on September 12, 1974 when Derg staged a coup d’état against Emperor Haile Selassie, and lasted until the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), a coalition of rebel groups, overthrew the government in 1991.

The revolutionaries put an end to the monarchy in March of 1975 and Crown Prince Asfaw Wossen settled permanently in London, United Kingdom where several other members of the Imperial family were already based.

The other members of the Imperial family who were still in Ethiopia at the time of the revolution were imprisoned.

After Communist North Korean forces invaded South Korea on June 25, 1950, the war raged up and down the peninsula several times as the United States, the United Nations (U.N.) and finally Communist China sent ground forces there.

It was during this time that Ethiopia sent 1,271 – 3,518 troops as part of the United Nation Forces to aid South Korea. The troops were known as the Kagnew Battalion under the command of General Mulugueta Bulli.

Ethiopia furnished three 1,200-man battalions to the UN Command, beginning in June 1951 but only one battalion at a time. The first of these battalions — known as Kagnew (Conquerors) Battalions — arrived in May 1951 and was assigned to the U.S. 7th Infantry Division.

Origins of the war: While the cause of the conflict was the desire of the Somali government of Siad Barre to incorporate the Somali-inhabited Ogaden region of Ethiopia into a Greater Somalia, it is unlikely Barre would have ordered the invasion if circumstances had not turned in his favor.

Ethiopia had historically dominated the region. By the beginning of the war, the Somali National Army (SNA) was only 35,000-men strong and was vastly outnumbered by the Ethiopian forces.

Nevertheless, throughout the 1970s, Somalia was the recipient of large amounts of Soviet military aid. The SNA had three times the tank force of Ethiopia, as well as a larger air force.

History of Ethiopian involvement: The first incursion by Ethiopian troops after the fall of the central Somali government took place in August 1996.

In March 1999, Ethiopian troops seemingly raided the Somali border town of Balanballe in pursuit of members of the Al-Ittihad Al-Islamiya group which has been combating to unite Ethiopia’s eastern Ogaden region with Somalia.

Afterward, in April 1999 two Somali leaders, Ali Mahdi and Hussein Aideed, said in an official protest to the United Nations Security Council, that heavily-armed Ethiopian troops entered the towns of Beledhawo and Dolo on Friday, April 9, 1999.