Talk:Northern Command attacks (Ethiopia)

Gullible or ignorant ENDF commanders or date should be 3 November

The Daily Nation source says that 1000 senior commanders were freed at Adet, and: The military official said the released members of the Northern Command Force were kidnapped by TPLF on the evening of November 4 after they were invited to a dinner party by the former regional governing party turned insurgent group.

Given that both the BBC News and France 24 witnesses say that the attacks started around midnight on the evening of 3 November, would senior ENDF commanders really have accepted a dinner invitation for the evening of 4 November with the TPLF? After several Northern Command bases had been attacked with at least 130 killed according to the current info we have from BBC?

The three hypotheses I see are:

• gullibility - the ENDF commanders thought that the TPLF wanted to negotiate at the 1000-person-plus dinner party;
• ignorance - communication (internet, telephone, radio, car/bus travel, word-of-mouth) about the events was sufficiently well blocked on a 16 or so hour time scale that the ENDF commanders didn't know about the attacks;
• date error
  • the ENDF spokesperson mixed up the date and the date should be 3 November;
  • the ENDF spokesperson didn't do much fact-checking at all and just put together a statement that sounded good;
  • an editor saw "3 November" and decided that it was the wrong date, and switched it to 4 November without checking with the author.

Boud (talk) 00:25, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

The gullibility hypothesis seems unlikely, given the general situation in the country at the time; I just listed it here since it's an interpretation that could be made. Boud (talk) 00:28, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

This is speculation, not sourced information, and shouldn't be included in the article until further information comes out. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:249:8F00:9490:EDF6:5660:6ED7:D8E2 (talk) 20:04, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

I fully agree that the hypotheses I posted here in this section of this talk page are not sourced information and should not be included in the article; they are hypotheses that might help us find a source that explains the puzzle. The Federal Police Commission is responsible for whatever statements it makes, even if they don't quite make sense. If there's a source that solves the puzzle, then we can add that. (The Daily Nation articles were widely circulated, e.g. AllAfrica.com.) Boud (talk) 21:08, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

The Daily Nation article published on Dec 11 got the date wrong. According to Dec 9 article from Fana BC, the same ENDF statement gave Nov 3 as the date of the dinner Nemozen (talk) 17:39, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

The Fana BC date would make more sense, I agree. However, without having any reliable sources clearly explain the date confusion or give a proper date, we still have to keep some mention of the discrepancy. I've done this keeping 3 Nov as the "default" date. Boud (talk) 20:44, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 2 January 2022

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: no consensus. If (along the lines of Mozzie's comment) a better alternative title comes to mind, feel free to propose it at any time. (closed by non-admin page mover) Extraordinary Writ (talk) 01:31, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

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4 November Northern Command attacks → 3 November Northern Command attacks – The attacks started on the night of November 3rd, not the 4th. The article should reflect this and be named the 3 November Northern Command attacks. Ue3lman (talk) 03:36, 2 January 2022 (UTC) — Relisting. -- Aervanath (talk) 15:17, 12 January 2022 (UTC)— Relisting. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 07:29, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose - You don't need a date. No one is ever going to type into the search bar "3 November" in search of what happened in Ethiopia. Frankly, you should name it to Northern Command attacks or Northern Command attacks (Ethiopia). Platonk (talk) 06:40, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
• Support - The roughly midnight timing of the attacks themselves makes it tricky between 3 and 4 November, but the addition of the aircraft arrivals on 3 November per van Reisen et al makes it reasonable to put "3 November". I'm fairly sure that there are other sources for the plane arrivals. The Tigray War is widely described as starting "on 4 November", especially by the Ethiopian federal government, so it seems reasonably likely that people will type "4 November attacks" into a search engine - which will typically accept "3" as close enough to "4". Northern Command attacks (Ethiopia) would also be reasonable. Northern Command attacks on its own risks too much ambiguity (e.g. the US has divided the whole world into geographical military commands, one of which is the (US) Northern Command). Boud (talk) 21:06, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose - The attack is widely known by this date. Despite the paragraphs discussing the lead up, of the 5 actual attacks on the bases, two started at 23:30, one "just before midnight" and the two others on November 4. The dinner party and the airport incidents are not technically part of the "northern command attack" itself. Further, as mentioned in the previous comment, no one is ever going to type into the search bar "3 November" in search of what happened in Ethiopia. Nemozen (talk) 18:50, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
• Comment Neither name is very good. Surely there is a better one (I can't think of it).Mozzie (talk) 10:58, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

"3 November flights to Mekelle" section is dubious

The section on flights from Addis to Mekelle on November 3 is questionable. The story about commandos arriving on Ethiopian Airlines surfaced exactly one year after it allegedly happened, there is no previous reporting by anyone including TPLF that this occurred. It seems unlikely that it would not have been mentioned by anyone for 1 year. If not journalists, at least TPLF spokespersons would have a strong incentive to report these facts, yet they only emerge a year later?

Second, the only sources in the story are a phone conversation with an unnamed Mekelle university "colleague" and "Tigray government insiders". There is no eyewitness account, no corroboration which seems very dubious for a shootout occuring at a major airport.

Third, the authors clearly got the aircraft types wrong. Even if this event occurred it would be absurd to use A350 and B787-9 for such a short flight. The authors also state that these are "cargo" planes, which is easily verified to be false. More importantly these aircraft are among the types with the longest range in the world and are heavily utilized by ET for intercontinental flights. Using them to transport commando operation troops on a 1 hour flight makes no commercial or military sense. Why wouldn't they just use the normal B737 for these flights, especially if it was a secret plot?

Fourth, the whole premise that two flights arriving is somehow unusual is incorrect. There were of course Ethiopian Airlines flights regularly scheduled between Addis and Mekelle many times per day every day and outside of the unnamed "insiders" no concrete evidence has been given anywhere in the articles to show those two flights were unusual.

Finally, the story was published by Martin Plaut, who is one of the, if not the, top pro-TPLF advocate in the west. It was published on his website martinplaut.com and the corresponding section on Wikipedia was added by user Martinplaut.

The 4 November attack was getting international media attention on the first anniversary, and it's possible that the "airport" story was planted to sow confusion. Nemozen (talk) 15:58, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

I concur that it's pretty sketchy, and martinplaut.com is basically a self-published blog. Here is the original edit [1] from user Martinplaut (talk · contribs). Platonk (talk) 16:23, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Claims like this have been floating around for a long time. One description is in the Eritrea Focus/Oslo Analytica Tigray War and Regional Implications Vol 1 report, page 17. The version there is different to the van Reisen et al one, and lacks a date (3 or 4 Nov?) and time: two helicopters and an Antonov flying from Bahir Dar. The author, Antony Shaw (consultant), is sceptical; and he's also sceptical of the overall narratives of all three main parties: the Ethiopian, Tigrayan and Eritrean governments. (Is Shaw notable? Traces of his existence: former British Foreign Office consultant, journalist. Antony Shaw is a New Zealand barrister, but unlikely to be the same person.) Boud (talk) 01:32, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Maybe this should just be called Northern Command attacks (Ethiopia)

i agree with the suggestion of one editor here that the title could just be "Northern Command attacks (Ethiopia)." This could avoid contention about when, precisely, the war started, and adding (Ethiopia) could properly disambiguate it from "northern commands" run by other militaries. Plus, its a bit more WP:CONCISE. DJ (XTheBedrockX) (talk) 17:59, 23 October 2022 (UTC)