Can Ethiopia’s seven-group rebel alliance challenge Abiy Ahmed?

Two days after seven Ethiopian armed groups announced the formation of the Ethiopian Peoples’ Forces Alliance for Survival and pledged to remove Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, a senior official of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) was asked whether the statement amounted to a declaration of war. He was speaking to Kjetil Tronvoll, professor of peace and conflict studies at Oslo New University College, who told Al Jazeera that the answer captured what the new rebel alliance had changed. It has not created a single, coherent military force capable of marching on Addis Ababa. It has brought several of Ethiopia’s separate conflicts into the same political framework and, potentially, into the same military calculation.