The Insurgency in Ogaden was an armed conflict that took place from 1992 to 2018. It was waged by nationalist and Islamist Somali insurgent groups seeking self-determination for the region, primarily the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) and Al-Itihaad Al-Islamiya (AIAI). The war in the region began in 1992, when the Ethiopian government attacked AIAI in an attempt to suppress the growth of the organization. In 1994, the ONLF commenced its armed struggle and began publicly calling for a sovereign and independent "Ogadenia" state.
Following the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia in late 2006, the insurgency in the Ogaden significantly escalated after a decade of low-intensity conflict. The military occupation in Somalia coincided with the large-scale 2007–08 Ethiopian crackdown in Ogaden. The Ethiopian National Defence Force (ENDF) perpetrated grave human rights abuses against the civilian population in the region, including the widespread burning of villages, extensive wartime sexual violence, and mass murder of civilians. International agencies such as the Red Cross were expelled from the Somali region by the Ethiopian government. Human Rights Watch reported the ENDF engaged in scorched-earth tactics to fight the ONLF. The war resulted in the establishment of the Ethiopian Regional Special Forces in the mid-2000s, which soon proliferated across the country.
After raging for over 25 years, the conflict ended in a peace agreement in 2018 as part of Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's reforms. During October 2024, the ONLF announced it is reassessing the 2018 agreement, citing a lack of progress on key provisions.
Background
Coinciding with the European colonial advances in the Horn of Africa during the late 1880s, Ethiopian Emperor Menelik II launched invasions into the Somali inhabited territory. The Ogaden region faced the brunt of the imperial military campaigns, during which the Ethiopian Empire imported a significant amount of firearms from European powers. The large-scale importation of European arms completely upset the balance of power between the Somalis and the Ethiopian Empire, as the colonial powers blocked the Somalis from receiving firearms.
The Ethiopian administration of the Ogaden was "sketchy in the extreme." Sporadic tax raids into the region often failed, and Ethiopian administrators and military personnel only resided in the major cities of Jijiga and Harar. Attempts at taxation in the region were called off following the massacre of 150 Ethiopian troops in January 1915.
In the years leading up to the Second Italo-Ethiopian War in 1935, the Ethiopian hold on the Ogaden remained tenuous. Due to native hostility, the region had nearly no Ethiopian presence until the Anglo-Ethiopian boundary commission in 1934 and the Wal Wal incident in 1935. The Ogaden region was formally incorporated into Ethiopia after World War II. It was ceded by the British to Ethiopia by 1955 despite protests of the Somalis, who saw the region as a geographical and political continuation of a Greater Somalia. Hopes of a unified Somali state were not realized as Ogaden was gradually incorporated into Ethiopia.
An independent Somalia later supported the Western Somali Liberation Front (WSLF), an armed separatist group formed out of the 1963–1965 Ogaden rebellion. In 1977, the Somali Democratic Republic invaded the Ogaden to support the WSLF and unify the region with the Somali state. After the Somali defeat in 1978, the Ogaden was turned into a militarized zone where population transfers were conducted in order to quell any signs of sedition.
Post-Ogaden War (1978–1991) Following the Ogaden War, many supporters of the Western Somali Liberation Front (WSLF) became disillusioned with the organization's increasing reliance on Mogadishu, as well as growing frustrated by international portrayals of the struggle in the Ogaden as merely a border matter between Ethiopia and Somalia. Eventually, a new organization, the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), was founded in 1984 by six disaffected members of the WSLF; however the organization was immediately banned by the government of Siad Barre. During the 1980s, the newly formed Somali Islamist group Al-Itihaad Al-Islamiya (AIAI) focused on providing welfare to refugee camps housing Somalis displaced from the Ogaden region following the 1977–1978 war with Ethiopia. While the organization had initially begun as a relief organization among Ogaden Somali populations, its ultimate goal was to free the Ogaden region from what Al-Itihaad and other Somali factions, such as the WSLF and ONLF, perceived to be Ethiopian colonial rule. AIAI began establishing Islamic schools across refugee camps, alongside widespread mobilization of youth. Consequently, the organization gained a significant following in the Ogaden region.
Collapse of the Derg regime (1991) In the meantime, the Eritrean People's Liberation Front and the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front overthrew the Ethiopian Derg dictatorship, leading to a period of political instability. The Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front assumed power by establishing a coalition of ethno-nationalist movements from across the country, choosing the previously marginalised Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) as its ally in Ogaden. ONLF's previously exiled leadership returned from exile, gaining the support of the local population. Eritrea attained independence in the aftermath of the Eritrean War of Independence, inspiring ONLF to pursue a similar goal for Ogaden.
Timeline During June 1991, the first general conference of Al-Itihaad Al-Islamiya was held in the Ogaden region, publicly establishing the organization and leadership in the territory. While AIAI had never renounced the use of violence, it first took a policy of cooperating with the directives of the newly formed post-Ethiopian Civil War government. In October 1991, Al-Itihaad formally registered as an Ethiopian political party. The organization also revealed the existence of its military wing to the government and delivered documents describing its political programme.
On 17 January 1992, at Garigo'an near Garbo, the Ogaden National Liberation Front central committee, led by Sheikh Ibrahim Abdallah, was elected. This would lay the foundation for an organized and cohesive organization.
Outbreak of insurgency (1992) On 11 August 1992, Ethiopian government forces ambushed Al-Itihaad, killing the organization's top leaders and two dozen other high-ranking figures. Recent success in curbing the rise of organizations like the Oromo Liberation Front encouraged the Ethiopian government to eradicate Al-Itihaad before it had grown firm roots in the region. Following the killings, AIAI quickly regrouped and elected Sheikh Abdulsalam Osman to replace Sheikh Abdulahi Bade, who had been assassinated in the ambush. This marked the beginning of a conflict lasting several months in 1992 that would see a total of nine battles between AIAI and the Ethiopian military, ending in a ceasefire by the end of the year. The ceasefire would hold in the region until 1994.
Rise of ONLF (1993–2000) Since 1992, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), which dominated EPRDF, sought to curb Somali demands for self-determination by influencing politics in the region. In January 1993, ONLF candidate Abdillahi Mohammed Sadi was elected president of the Somali Region, having received 70% of the votes. Sadi was, however, sacked by TPLF officials seven months later, creating a power vacuum. Tensions between the TPLF and ONLF escalated in 1994.
In 1994, fighting between Ethiopian forces and the ONLF began at Werder, resulting in several days of clashes. Following 1995, armed conflict in the Ogaden sharply increased. During military confrontations between the ONLF and the military, government forces enacted brutal measures that included summary executions, extensive detentions without prosecution, enforced disappearances, and torture in a bid to crush the insurgency. In response to heavy-handed measures, the ONLF began reaching out to the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) and the Afar Revolutionary Democratic Unity Front (ARDUF). Agreements to coordinate activities with both groups were signed. In response to this development, the EPRDF intensified operations and began labelling these groups "terrorists." In a bid to gain control of the region, different Somali leaders were imprisoned or assassinated by the central government. AIAI began fighting alongside the ONLF when Addis Ababa banned the party.
Despite an intensive government military campaign against the ONLF from 1994 to 1996, the organization survived and grew in strength. While the ONLF was effectively composed of numerous differing groups, the government's political interference and brutal counterinsurgency measures led many Somalis in the Ogaden to rally behind it. Previous internal fractures within the organization greatly dissipated in this period, resulting in the ONLF becoming a more cohesive force than it had ever previously been.
Insurgent build up (2000–2006) Over the early 2000s, the ONLF's military capabilities expanded and the organization began stepping up attacks against Ethiopian military positions in the Ogaden, with a significant escalation in armed conflict occurring during 2005.
On 13 April 2003, ONLF initiated the Operation Mandad, aiming to expel government troops from the districts of Korahey and Dolo. Two days later, a battle took place in the towns of Alen and Garas Qalo. Security forces suffered 60 fatalities and lost 2 army trucks; 41 rebels were also killed in the fighting. Authorities responded by imposing curfews on the towns of Kebri Dehar, Warder, and Shilabo, alongside arresting 36 suspected militants. On 1 October 2005, insurgents launched attacks against government troops stationed in the towns of Hamarro and Fik, killing 4 and injuring 5 soldiers. On 2 October 2005, the town of Gasan and an army base located in the district of Kebri Dehar came under a militant attack; 5 soldiers were slain and 6 wounded. On 19 October 2005, rebels attacked an army encampment in the area of Kudunbur, 11 soldiers were killed and 13 wounded. On 15 November 2005, Ethiopian troops allegedly committed a massacre of 30 civilians and prisoners after the latter demanded better treatment from their captors.
On 21 May 2006, the ONLF entered into an alliance with five different Ethiopian opposition groups in an effort to strengthen the resistance to the TPLF-dominated central government. Included were the Ethiopian People's Patriotic Front, the Oromo Liberation Front, and the Sidama Liberation Front.
War in Somalia and escalation of insurgency (2006–07)
Direct links between the ONLF and Islamic organizations within Somalia, in particular Al-Itihaad Al-Islamiya, long predates the events of the mid-2000s. The Ethiopian government took advantage of the war on terror to routinely label opposition movements terrorists, and accused the ONLF of being associated with and linked to Al-Qaeda.
The ONLF had a covert relationship with and was supported by the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), which had risen to power in Somalia during 2006. The ICU was seen as a "natural ally." The Ogaden/Somali Region was at the heart of the dispute between the ICU and the Ethiopian government. A high-ranking ICU official had declared, following their rise to power, that, "The land taken by Ethiopia cannot be forgotten because it is attached to our blood ... Ethiopia mistreats the Somalis under their administration." On 23 July 2006, the ONLF announced the downing of an ENDF transport helicopter heading for Somalia and warned that Ethiopian military movements in the region pointed towards an imminent large scale operation. During November 2006, the ONLF declared that it would not allow Ethiopian National Defense Force troops to stage into Somalia from their territories.