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On 2 January 2022, it was proposed that this article be moved to 3 November Northern Command attacks. The result of the discussion was no consensus. |
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The Daily Nation source says that 1000 senior commanders were freed at Adet, and: The military official said the released members of the Northern Command Force were kidnapped by TPLF on the evening of November 4 after they were invited to a dinner party by the former regional governing party turned insurgent group.
Given that both the BBC News and France 24 witnesses say that the attacks started around midnight on the evening of 3 November, would senior ENDF commanders really have accepted a dinner invitation for the evening of 4 November with the TPLF? After several Northern Command bases had been attacked with at least 130 killed according to the current info we have from BBC?
The three hypotheses I see are:
Boud ( talk) 00:25, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
The gullibility hypothesis seems unlikely, given the general situation in the country at the time; I just listed it here since it's an interpretation that could be made. Boud ( talk) 00:28, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
The Daily Nation article published on Dec 11 got the date wrong. According to Dec 9 article from Fana BC, the same ENDF statement gave Nov 3 as the date of the dinner Nemozen ( talk) 17:39, 28 May 2021 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: no consensus. If (along the lines of Mozzie's comment) a better alternative title comes to mind, feel free to propose it at any time. ( closed by non-admin page mover) Extraordinary Writ ( talk) 01:31, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
4 November Northern Command attacks → 3 November Northern Command attacks – The attacks started on the night of November 3rd, not the 4th. The article should reflect this and be named the 3 November Northern Command attacks. Ue3lman ( talk) 03:36, 2 January 2022 (UTC) — Relisting. -- Aervanath ( talk) 15:17, 12 January 2022 (UTC)— Relisting. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 07:29, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
The section on flights from Addis to Mekelle on November 3 is questionable. The story about commandos arriving on Ethiopian Airlines surfaced exactly one year after it allegedly happened, there is no previous reporting by anyone including TPLF that this occurred. It seems unlikely that it would not have been mentioned by anyone for 1 year. If not journalists, at least TPLF spokespersons would have a strong incentive to report these facts, yet they only emerge a year later?
Second, the only sources in the story are a phone conversation with an unnamed Mekelle university "colleague" and "Tigray government insiders". There is no eyewitness account, no corroboration which seems very dubious for a shootout occuring at a major airport.
Third, the authors clearly got the aircraft types wrong. Even if this event occurred it would be absurd to use A350 and B787-9 for such a short flight. The authors also state that these are "cargo" planes, which is easily verified to be false. More importantly these aircraft are among the types with the longest range in the world and are heavily utilized by ET for intercontinental flights. Using them to transport commando operation troops on a 1 hour flight makes no commercial or military sense. Why wouldn't they just use the normal B737 for these flights, especially if it was a secret plot?
Fourth, the whole premise that two flights arriving is somehow unusual is incorrect. There were of course Ethiopian Airlines flights regularly scheduled between Addis and Mekelle many times per day every day and outside of the unnamed "insiders" no concrete evidence has been given anywhere in the articles to show those two flights were unusual.
Finally, the story was published by Martin Plaut, who is one of the, if not the, top pro-TPLF advocate in the west. It was published on his website martinplaut.com and the corresponding section on Wikipedia was added by user Martinplaut.
The 4 November attack was getting international media attention on the first anniversary, and it's possible that the "airport" story was planted to sow confusion. Nemozen ( talk) 15:58, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
i agree with the suggestion of one editor here that the title could just be "Northern Command attacks (Ethiopia)." This could avoid contention about when, precisely, the war started, and adding (Ethiopia) could properly disambiguate it from "northern commands" run by other militaries. Plus, its a bit more WP:CONCISE. DJ (XTheBedrockX) ( talk) 17:59, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Northern Command attacks (Ethiopia) article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
On 2 January 2022, it was proposed that this article be moved to 3 November Northern Command attacks. The result of the discussion was no consensus. |
This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
The Daily Nation source says that 1000 senior commanders were freed at Adet, and: The military official said the released members of the Northern Command Force were kidnapped by TPLF on the evening of November 4 after they were invited to a dinner party by the former regional governing party turned insurgent group.
Given that both the BBC News and France 24 witnesses say that the attacks started around midnight on the evening of 3 November, would senior ENDF commanders really have accepted a dinner invitation for the evening of 4 November with the TPLF? After several Northern Command bases had been attacked with at least 130 killed according to the current info we have from BBC?
The three hypotheses I see are:
Boud ( talk) 00:25, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
The gullibility hypothesis seems unlikely, given the general situation in the country at the time; I just listed it here since it's an interpretation that could be made. Boud ( talk) 00:28, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
The Daily Nation article published on Dec 11 got the date wrong. According to Dec 9 article from Fana BC, the same ENDF statement gave Nov 3 as the date of the dinner Nemozen ( talk) 17:39, 28 May 2021 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: no consensus. If (along the lines of Mozzie's comment) a better alternative title comes to mind, feel free to propose it at any time. ( closed by non-admin page mover) Extraordinary Writ ( talk) 01:31, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
4 November Northern Command attacks → 3 November Northern Command attacks – The attacks started on the night of November 3rd, not the 4th. The article should reflect this and be named the 3 November Northern Command attacks. Ue3lman ( talk) 03:36, 2 January 2022 (UTC) — Relisting. -- Aervanath ( talk) 15:17, 12 January 2022 (UTC)— Relisting. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 07:29, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
The section on flights from Addis to Mekelle on November 3 is questionable. The story about commandos arriving on Ethiopian Airlines surfaced exactly one year after it allegedly happened, there is no previous reporting by anyone including TPLF that this occurred. It seems unlikely that it would not have been mentioned by anyone for 1 year. If not journalists, at least TPLF spokespersons would have a strong incentive to report these facts, yet they only emerge a year later?
Second, the only sources in the story are a phone conversation with an unnamed Mekelle university "colleague" and "Tigray government insiders". There is no eyewitness account, no corroboration which seems very dubious for a shootout occuring at a major airport.
Third, the authors clearly got the aircraft types wrong. Even if this event occurred it would be absurd to use A350 and B787-9 for such a short flight. The authors also state that these are "cargo" planes, which is easily verified to be false. More importantly these aircraft are among the types with the longest range in the world and are heavily utilized by ET for intercontinental flights. Using them to transport commando operation troops on a 1 hour flight makes no commercial or military sense. Why wouldn't they just use the normal B737 for these flights, especially if it was a secret plot?
Fourth, the whole premise that two flights arriving is somehow unusual is incorrect. There were of course Ethiopian Airlines flights regularly scheduled between Addis and Mekelle many times per day every day and outside of the unnamed "insiders" no concrete evidence has been given anywhere in the articles to show those two flights were unusual.
Finally, the story was published by Martin Plaut, who is one of the, if not the, top pro-TPLF advocate in the west. It was published on his website martinplaut.com and the corresponding section on Wikipedia was added by user Martinplaut.
The 4 November attack was getting international media attention on the first anniversary, and it's possible that the "airport" story was planted to sow confusion. Nemozen ( talk) 15:58, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
i agree with the suggestion of one editor here that the title could just be "Northern Command attacks (Ethiopia)." This could avoid contention about when, precisely, the war started, and adding (Ethiopia) could properly disambiguate it from "northern commands" run by other militaries. Plus, its a bit more WP:CONCISE. DJ (XTheBedrockX) ( talk) 17:59, 23 October 2022 (UTC)