Ethiopian federal forces retake Mekelle airport from Tigrayan fighters, residents say

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — Ethiopian federal forces have taken the airport in Mekelle, the capital of the northern Tigray region, according to people in the city who spoke to The Associated Press on Saturday, reversing a takeover by Tigrayan fighters that prompted the suspension of commercial flights last month.

It wasn't immediately clear when federal forces recaptured Alula Aba Nega Airport. Those who provided the information declined to be identified for fear of retribution amid uncertainty over who controlled the city.

Severe disruptions to internet and cellphone networks have made gathering and verifying information from Tigray difficult. Details of how the airport changed hands, including whether fighting took place there, remained unclear.

“The military is in full control of the airport. That much I can confirm,” an Ethiopian general said on condition of anonymity.

Neither the Ethiopian government nor the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, or TPLF, had issued an official statement on the airport’s reported capture. It wasn’t clear who controlled Mekelle itself. An AP contributor in the city said residents feared looting amid the uncertainty.

“Many reports indicate that the government and allied forces have begun to control Tigray’s capital,” said Jalale Getachew Birru, an Ethiopia analyst for ACLED, an independent global monitor that collects, analyzes and maps data on conflict.

The AP could not independently verify those reports.

TPLF fighters seized the airport on Sept. 23, prompting Ethiopian Airlines to suspend flights to Mekelle and the Tigrayan cities of Axum and Shire. The African Union urged restraint, warning that renewed tensions threatened the peace agreement signed in 2022.

Federal troops are fighting alongside allied Tigrayan forces against the TPLF. The AP previously reported that the Tigray Peace Force, a breakaway faction of the Tigrayan rebels, was operating alongside federal forces in the neighboring Afar region.

The reported change in control follows a sharp deterioration in relations between Ethiopia and neighboring Eritrea. Ethiopia on Thursday ordered 10 Eritrean diplomats to leave and announced the closure of its embassy in Eritrea. Eritrea said that it would sever diplomatic ties.

Ethiopian authorities have accused Eritrea of supporting the TPLF, an allegation Eritrea has denied.

The government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, if it takes control of Mekelle, is very likely to leave regional security in the hands of the Tigray Peace Force, which comprises former members of the Tigray Defense Forces, Birru said.

Abiy has tried and failed to subdue Tigray’s rebellious leaders in recent months, with TPLF Chairman Debretsion Gebremichael openly challenging him. Renewed fighting has shattered a 2022 peace deal that ended a devastating two-year war between federal troops, backed by Eritrea and allied militias, and the TPLF.

“This is an extraordinary and largely unexpected turn in a war whose direction looked very different only days ago,” Getachew Temare, an independent attorney and human rights defender who is from Ethiopia, said of the possible fall of Mekelle in an analysis posted on X. “But the most consequential question is not whether Mekelle falls. It is what this fall means politically.”

He said the emergence of the Tigray Peace Force makes the current conflict different from the previous one. When Mekelle fell to federal forces in November 2020, the TPLF “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 fighting has brought renewed hardship to civilians still recovering from the previous 2020-2022 war. Residents of Mekelle told the AP earlier this week that communications, banking and other essential services had been disrupted.

In September, residents described fears of renewed isolation following the suspension of flights. They also reported that roads connecting Tigray and Afar had been closed to civilian traffic, although the AP couldn't independently verify the closures.

Kiyaro reported from Hamburg, Germany. Associated Press journalist Khaled Kazziha contributed from Nairobi, Kenya.

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FILE - An Ethiopian flag is seen in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on May 5, 2022. (AP Photo, File)

The head of Tennessee's prison system is resigning, Gov. Bill Lee announced Saturday, the first major staff shake-up since Christa Pike's stunning failed execution left her unconscious and on a ventilator at a hospital.

Frank Strada, commissioner of the Department of Correction, will step down this month, Lee said. Some of the governor's fellow Republicans and other elected officials had been urging a change in leadership.

It was the second time since May that Tennessee has not been able to execute a prisoner who was seemingly moments away from death.

The governor also announced that former U.S. Attorney Ed Stanton would lead a review of what happened in Pike's death chamber. Stanton previously was named to conduct a review after Lee called off a different execution in 2022; he found in that case that Tennessee had not complied with its own lethal injection process.

Strada said in a statement that resigning was “in the best interest of Tennesseans” while Stanton's review is conducted. The state failed to execute Pike despite administering two doses of a lethal drug, pentobarbital.

Pike, now 50, was 18 when she and her boyfriend tortured and killed a classmate, Colleen Slemmer, in a jealous rage in 1995. She became one of the youngest women to be sent to death row.

There was no immediate response from Pike's lawyers for an update Saturday on her condition at a hospital. They had disclosed Friday that she was on a ventilator and unconscious in the hours following the execution attempt and that hospital staff were trying to clear the two doses of pentobarbital.

The shocking failure has left both sides of the death penalty debate demanding answers. Lee has ordered an independent review and halted any new executions. Strada said he believes the state “carried out its responsibilities in accordance with the established protocol.”

Pike's legal team welcomed Strada's departure but said “it does nothing to help Christa now.”

“What happened to her Wednesday reflects a systemic failure that goes far beyond any one person,” the four-lawyer team said. “We hope the governor’s call for a full, independent review will expose the profound problems within Tennessee’s entire death penalty system.”

Pike’s attorneys said they believed problems with the IV lines caused the pentobarbital to flow into her body instead of her bloodstream.

Pike was extraordinarily cooperative with the execution team, even instructing them to “please try here, please try here” as they tried to insert lines, lawyer Randy Spivey told reporters Thursday.

In May, Tennessee stopped the execution of Tony Carruthers after staff placed an IV into his right arm but couldn’t get a secondary IV line. The governor ordered officials to wait at least a year before trying to execute him again.

Strada took over the Correction Department in January 2023 after serving as deputy director of the Arizona Department of Corrections. In late 2024, he announced that Tennessee was changing its lethal injection protocol and would use only pentobarbital.

Four people have been executed in Tennessee since 2025, according to the Correction Department.

Court filings show that Strada's job included overseeing executions in Arizona when they resumed in 2022 following an eight-year break.

Clarence Dixon was the first that year. The medical team had trouble finding a vein to administer the lethal drugs and finally made an incision in his groin area. The process took about 25 minutes.

That same year in Arizona, medical staff preparing Frank Atwood for execution initially could not locate a vein in his right arm but inserted the IV in his right hand — at Atwood’s suggestion, said Henry Brean, an Arizona Daily Star reporter who was a witness.

Strada announced Murray Hooper's execution by lethal injection, the third in 2022. There was an unsuccessful attempt to insert an IV line in his right arm. The IV in Hooper's leg was inserted into his femoral artery.

“When Governor Lee hired Strada to fix execution problems in Tennessee, his problematic history of executions in Arizona was well known,” said Kit Thomas, an attorney who has represented people on Tennessee's death row.

FILE - Tennessee Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada speaks to the media after the execution of Harold Wayne Nichols, Dec. 11, 2025, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV, File)