WITH attention sharply focused on Iran and the Saudi-Ansarullah conflict, you may be forgiven for not noticing that the East African nation of Eritrea has invaded its much larger neighbour Ethiopia. On the face of it, this is insane: Ethiopia`s population is at least 30 times that of its smaller neighbour and its GDP of $140 billion dwarfs Eritrea`s modest $2bn. In military terms, while Eritrea thanks to its national service policy fields a large army consisting of some 350,000 active duty soldiers and approximately 650,000 reservists, these are largely poorly armed, equipped and trained and heavily outgunned by Ethiopia, which has greatly modernised its military in recent years.

Nevertheless, Eritrean forces entered Ethiopian territory in late September this year, sparking clashes with the Ethiopian army. Is Eritrea insane for taking on its much larger neighbour? Not quite. The incursion comes at a time when Ethiopia is facing an alliance of rebels that have banded together with the aim of toppling Ethiopian president Abiy Ahmed`s government. The alliance unites seven groups including the Oromo Liberation army, the Fano militia and the Tigray People`s Liberation Front. The TPLF have an interesting history here; staging repeated rebellions against Ethiopian rule, the Tigrayanled Ethiopian People`s Revolutionary Democratic Front actually held power in Ethiopia from 1991 to 2018 when they were sidelined by the current Ethiopian leadership leading to what is known as the Tigray war of 2020-2022.

Relations between Ethiopia and Eritrea are even more contentious: when Eritrea became independent in 1993 following a brutal 30-year conflict, it effectively cut off Ethiopia`s access to the Red Sea, something that Abiy Ahmed wants to rectify.

Ethiopia and Eritrea did have a brief rapprochement during the Tigray war, when they joined forces against the TPLF. Yes, the same TPLF that Eritrea is now supporting against Ethiopia; another object lesson that while alliances are temporary, interests are permanent.

Eritrea has reason to believe that if Ethiopia manages to subdue the rebels, a victorious Ethiopian army will march into Eritrea and wrest access to the Red Sea, something that Abiy deems as `inevitable` and an `existential` need for his country.

He`s not wrong; the most populous landlocked country in the world, Ethiopia is forced to rely on the Addis-Djibouti corridor for 95 per cent of its export-import trade and has to pay close to $2bn annually in transit and port fees.

But its rush to the Red Sea is setting off alarm bells among coastal states, notablySomalia, which is livid at Abiy`s outreach to the breakaway so-called Republic of Somaliland, that has also pledged its full support to Ethiopia`s quest for the Red Sea and is considering leasing 19 kilometres to Ethiopia. It`s worth noting that the only country to have formally recognised Somaliland is Israel, and Somaliland also has very close relations with Israel`s chief Arab ally, the UAE.

Why is this important? Because while Saudi Arabia and Turkiye currently have good relations with Ethiopia, neither would be delighted to have Ethiopia formally become a littoral state of the Red Sea, and in Turkiye`s case, certainly not at the cost of Somalia, with which Turkiye has massively expanded its relations, encompassing both the military and economic spheres. For the embattled Saudis, having a state closely allied to Israel and the UAE expand its power in this manner may have negative long-term consequences.

But while these are somewhat distant concerns, the expanding conflict in EastAfrica is certainly drawing Egypt`s attention. Why? Because Egypt, as Herodotus wrote in the 5th century BC, is `a gift of the Nile`, a saying that is as true today as it was then, and Ethiopia`s plan to buildthe `Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam` on the headwaters of the Nile poses an existential threat to Egypt.

Thus, it is in Egypt`s interests to curtail Ethiopian power as much as possible by supporting Eritrea. And then there`s Sudan, where Ethiopia is accused not only of allowing the use of its territory for arms shipments from the UAE to the rebel RSF in Sudan, but also (along with the UAE) by the Sudanese army of carrying out drone strikes on Sudanese soil. Moreover, a recent investigation by Reuters claims to have uncovered a training camp for the Rapid Support Forces in Western Ethiopia.

To be fair, Ethiopia`s actions are also dictated by its financial dependence on the UAE (the RSF`s chief backer) and its fears that a victory of the Sudanese army relations between the two have never been good will result in a strategic encirclement of Ethiopia. And so, we see that, once again, fear and financial imperatives are stoking another conflict that will not stay confined to one region. • The wnter is a joumalist.

X: @zarrarkhuhro