1/3… 🧵 #Ethiopia, Mekelle is on the brink of another fall. But this is not 2020 repeating itself. Based on information I have independently confirmed, ENDF and Tigray Peace Forces now control the outskirts of Mekelle and are preparing to enter the city without a major violent confrontation. My sources also indicate that forces under the political leadership of Debretsion Gebremichael are increasingly dispersed and losing hope of mounting an effective defense. If the present trajectory continues, several other major towns in Tigray could also change hands rapidly. This is an extraordinary and largely unexpected turn in a war whose direction looked very different only days ago. But the most consequential question is not whether Mekelle falls. It is what this fall means politically. When Mekelle fell to federal forces in November 2020, the TPLF lost the capital but retained something far more important. A substantial political and social constituency for armed resistance remained intact. Within months, Tigrayan forces returned to Mekelle and the military balance was dramatically reversed. The circumstances today are fundamentally different. The TPLF enters this moment fragmented and politically weakened. Tigrayans themselves are fighting on opposite sides of the battlefield. Tigray Peace Forces are advancing alongside the ENDF. The population is also profoundly exhausted by war. Years of killing, displacement, economic destruction, repression and uncertainty have changed the political environment inside Tigray. Most importantly, the latest armed alliance has not generated the broad political unity that accompanied the previous war. Several important opposition political forces in Tigray have not supported another armed confrontation. If Mekelle falls under these circumstances, therefore, it could represent much more than the loss of a regional capital. It could mark the demise of the last major TPLF faction that sought to make another armed struggle the organizing political project of Tigray. But military defeat is not political settlement. That was precisely the lesson of the first fall of Mekelle. What happens immediately afterward will be far more consequential than the capture of the city itself. There may now be a rare opening for a provisional political arrangement that is broader than any single armed organization. Political parties, respected civic and religious leaders, senior public figures and other credible representatives could form a limited transitional administration focused on restoring civilian government, stabilizing Tigray and creating conditions for a credible election. The international community has an important role at this point. It should use maximum diplomatic pressure on the Ethiopian government to prevent reprisals, collective punishment and the temptation to convert military victory into political domination of Tigray. Any new administration must also emerge with sufficient autonomy and political breadth to avoid being viewed simply as an extension of Addis Ababa. Yet even a credible provisional administration would inherit an extraordinarily difficult security environment. Eritrea remains a serious geopolitical factor along Tigray’s northern frontier. Armed forces in neighboring areas, including forces associated with Amhara, could also become sources of destabilization from the very beginning. This is why it may be too early to speak casually about comprehensive security sector reform. Tigray certainly needs profound reform of the relationship between armed forces, political parties and civilian authority. But an emerging provisional administration cannot dismantle its security capacity while facing potentially hostile armed actors around it.