SUMMARY
OLA (Oromo Liberation Army, or Waraana Bilisummaa Oromoo, WBO in the Oromo language; referred to as OLF/Shane by the government) was a rebel group challenging the Ethiopian government in a conflict over territory. The group claimed to fight in the name of the Oromo population in Ethiopia, which at roughly 38 million make up around a third of the overall population in the country, and which the group claimed had been systematically socioeconomically, culturally, and politically excluded and discriminated against by the Ethiopian government for more than a century.
The conflict over the status of the Oromiya region has a long history, with an embryonic Oromo “national movement” beginning to emerge already during the 1960s, and the rebel group OLF launching its armed struggle in the mid-1970s. OLA was the armed wing of OLF during several decades, only emerging as an independent actor in 2019. The background to OLA severing ties with OLF was the political changes that swept through Ethiopia in 2018, when Abiy Ahmed, an Oromo, became prime minister. Signaling an openness to political reform, the new prime minister announced that he would work to decriminalize a number of opposition organizations, including OLF, effectively opening up the political space in Ethiopia. This eventually led to OLF’s leadership signing a peace agreement with the new regime, and subsequently returning home from exile in Eritrea together with some 1500 fighters, who handed in their weapons. During the fall of 2018, the situation became more complicated, however. Since the details of the peace agreement remained secret, confusion regarding the rebels’ disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) spread. OLF fighters based in western and southern Oromiya refused to hand over their weapons and a war of words ensued, accompanied by intermittent clashes. During early 2019, there was a trickle of fighters reporting for DDR, but the process was fraught with problems and reports soon began circulating about the poor conditions in the camps, and that returnees were subjected to beatings and sent to detention centers. Thus, the trickle dried up, and by April, the cracks between the movement’s political leadership and armed wing were big enough to cause the group to split. On 1 April, OLA subsequently declared that it had “detached itself” from OLF, and that the failure of the government to implement the peace agreement forced it to continue the armed struggle. The split was confirmed by OLF leader Ibsa the following month, when he signed an agreement disavowing links with armed groups operating in its name.
The ultimate goal of OLA remained the same as its mother organization: “the realization of national self-determination for the Oromo people and their liberation from oppression and exploitation in all forms”. Expanding on the issue, leaders of the group stated that OLA fought to liberate Oromiya, after which the Oromo would be able to vote on their future, with a right to choose independence. Furthermore, the group declared on a number of occasions, that it would engage in total war to reach its goals.
Over the years following its inception, OLA expanded its area of operation. In 2019, the group was confined to western Oromiya’s Welega zones, as well as to Borana and Guji zones, in southern Oromiya, the former bordering Kenya. While these areas remained its main strongholds, the group widened its reach as the conflict escalated, moving north from Guji zone into Bale and Arsi, and east from the Welegas into West and North Shewa, thus inching closer to the capital, Addis Ababa. During 2021, OLA also crossed into neighboring Amhara Regional State, to the north, carrying out attacks in the Amharan North Shewa, South Welo and Oromiya zones. After a government counter offensive in late November 2021, the group’s area of operation contracted once again. However, from 2025 OLA became more active in eastern Oromiya (particularly East Hararghe) and also began expanding west, moving into neighboring Benishangul-Gumuz state.
OLA’s fighters were organized into a number of fronts, headed by zone commanders, but the actual size of the group was unclear. Little neutral information is available, and the task is made even more problematic given the fact that some OLF fighters did report for DDR, but later went back to the bush to rejoin OLA because of the treatment they received. The exact number who made this decision is unknown. Estimates that do circulate as to the size of the group are vague and range from 1000 to 100 000. Developments within OLA in 2024 made it even more difficult to estimate its size. In September of that year, it became clear that a faction of the group under the leadership of Yadesa Negassa, also known as Sagni Nagasa, former commander of the OLA’s central zone and a member of its executive committee, had broken away or been expelled, opinions diverge. The exact number of fighters following him was not clear, but it was reportedly at least in the hundreds, and potentially in the thousands.
The group was led by its commanders, and its supreme decision-making body was its high command, at the head of which was Commander-in-Chief Jaal Marroo (his nom de guerre). Before the split from OLF, Jaal Marro, whose birth name was Miliyon Diriba, was the commander-in-chief of the group’s Western Command. With a background as deputy commander of OLA’s southern front, Gammachiis Aboye was appointed Deputy Commander-in-Chief in 2021.
In November 2020, a year and a half after OLA’s birth, yet another conflict erupted in Ethiopia, pitting former rulers TPLF against the government. There was a long and complicated history between TPLF and OLA’s mother organization OLF. The two groups cooperated on a tactical level during the long-running conflicts against the Derg military regime (mid-1970s – 1991), but after the latter’s defeat, relations turned sour. In the mid-1990s, OLF launched an armed conflict against the new TPLF-led government, and the two remained bitter enemies over the following two decades. However, by 2021 both TPLF and OLF splinter OLA were in opposition to the government, and as such, relations improved to such an extent that OLA leader Jaal Marroo in August announced that the two had entered into an alliance. Initially, cooperation appeared to be limited to information sharing, but as the year progressed, the two groups began coordinating militarily, inching closer to each other’s areas of operation, and finally meeting up in Amhara State, during a large-scale offensive towards Addis Ababa. During a brief period, OLA and TPLF‘s armed wing TDF fought together, but by late November, a government counter-offensive managed to break their momentum, and both groups were forced to retreat towards their home regions. TPLF signed a peace agreement with the government in the fall of 2022, and there were little report of two groups’ cooperation for some time. However, by 2025 the accord broke down and as relations soured between TPLF and the government, they appear to have strengthened with OLA once again.
Aside from cooperation with TPLF, by late 2025 there were also reports circulating of the group forging a tactical alliance with Fano, the militia fighting the government in the Amhara region. As with TPLF, OLA had a tumultuous past with Fano; the former fought alongside the government in 2020-22 and there is a long history of ethnic tension and violence along the Oromiya-Amhara border, where Amhara and Oromo communities have competing grievances.
