Ethiopian government officials and survivors have accused OLA fighters of carrying out the massacre, a charge the rebel group has denied…reports Asian Lite News
The Ethiopian Joint Security and Intelligence Task Force disclosed that it had killed 153 suspected Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) rebels accused of having committed a recent massacre.
The task force said in a press statement that another 900 suspected OLA rebels have been detained during a month-long security sweep from June 14 to July 14, Xinhua news agency reported.
During this campaign, individual and group level firearms, a huge amount of bullets and bullets magazines, various military fatigue uniforms, as well as several vehicles have been seized from the OLA, the statement said.
According to the statement, the killed and arrested suspected OLA rebels were related to a massacre carried out last month on mainly ethnic Amhara farmers in Tole rural locality of Gimbi district, West Wollega zone of Ethiopia’s Oromia region.
Ethiopian government officials and survivors have accused OLA fighters of carrying out the massacre, a charge the rebel group has denied.
The Ethiopian government has disclosed hundreds of people were killed in the massacre.
The OLA is a breakaway armed faction of an ex-rebel group Oromo Liberation Front (OLF). In May 2021, the Ethiopian parliament voted to designate the OLA as a terrorist group.
Al-Shabab fighters killed
Authorities in Ethiopia’s Somali region announced that they have killed more than 100 Al-Shabab fighters during a failed incursion from neighbouring Somalia by the militant group.
In a press statement released on Saturday evening, the Somali Region Communication Bureau said the Al-Shabab fighters were killed earlier this week during a security operation led by the region’s special police forces that lasted for three days.
An armed Al-Shabab team that entered the Afder zone of the Somali region four days ago has been completely destroyed, the statement said.
Thirteen vehicles that were used by the militants during their incursion into the southeastern Ethiopia region were destroyed, it said.
Large amounts of food supplies and firearm caches were also captured from the Al-Shabab militants. Somalia has struggled with the lack of an effective central government since 1991 when former President Mohammed Siad Barre was ousted from power by armed rebellion, leading to a civil war.
The weakness of the central government of Somalia has led to the proliferation of sea piracy, illegal fishing by foreign boats and attacks by terror groups, most notably Al-Shabab.
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