By Staff Writer
(Nairobi, Kenya) — Amhara Region Chief Administrator Arega Kebede has appointed Lieutenant General Tigabu Yilma, former commander of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), as the region’s new Police Commissioner, according to a statement published on the regional police force’s official Facebook page.
He replaced Commissioner General (Dr.) Zelalem Mengiste, a career police officer who led the Amhara Regional Police Command for 17 months since March 2025. Zelalem has returned to his previous post as Deputy Commissioner General of the Federal Police.
Lt. Gen. Tigabu assumes leadership of the regional police force during ongoing security challenges in the Amhara region over the past three years. A senior military officer with more than 40 years of service in the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF), his career includes serving in several critical roles: as head of both the Defense Health Directorate and the Defense Logistics Directorate, as a member of the senior Defense Council governing military strategy, and as head of the Federal Police Health Main Department prior to his current appointment.
Beyond his domestic military career, Lt. Gen. Tigabu commanded AMISOM from February 2019 to August 2020, leading international forces against Al-Shabaab in Somalia. He represented Ethiopia at a July 2026 conference of troop-contributing countries in Kampala, Uganda, regarding the African Union Support and Stabilization Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM), which succeeded ATMIS and AMISOM.
Lt. Gen. Tigabu’s transition from the armed forces to police leadership follows a broader trend within Ethiopia’s security apparatus. In March 2026, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed appointed Lieutenant General Asrat Denero, former Ground Forces commander and Military Intelligence Director, to lead the Addis Ababa Police Commission.
The leadership change unfolds as federal authorities track an emerging coalition of regional armed groups referred to as “Tsimdo,” which allegedly links local Fano units with Tigrayan armed elements.
Zemene Kasse, leader of the Amhara Fano National Movement (AFNM), publicly stated in a recent interview that cross-group cooperation talks involving Tigrayan, Gumuz, Berta, Somali, and Oromo forces have been underway for eight months. Meanwhile, the Ethiopian National Defense Force, operating alongside regional police units, continues to lead security operations across the region.
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With so many generals in his army, Abiy Ahmed is losing all the wars he has declared and led as law enforcement. Many remember how his general and stage performer Bacha (Bercha) Debele.run away and escaped from being taken captive for the second time during Tigray military operations in 2021. Bercha`s flight from the war front can be a good documentary film to show the disorderly retreat or runaway of Abiy Ahmed`s army.
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What does this mean for the region? What will this new appointment of a general from the army bring to the peace and stability starving noble citizens in the Amhara region? Right now the people of that region are under the deadly iron fights of two groups that have been at each other’s throat since 2022. At nights in many rural areas they are at the mercy of those armed vagabonds hiding in the bushes and during the day they are at the whims of the armed militias working for the regional government. In simple terms Amharas have been at each other where thousands have been victimized just like in western part of Oromia. Having a teenager in your family has become a deadly liability to your entire family in battle zone area of both Amhara and Oromia regions. If your teenage boy declines to join the armed vagabonds in the bushes, they will come at night and wipe out the entire household. If the regional government does not recognize you as one of their own, you and your family have a better chance winning a lottery you did not play of being left alive. I have read reports about those thousands who were forced to flee their hometown where they had lived for generations because of such substantiated threats. You will be killed if you do and you will be killed if you don’t, a catch 22 nightmare. I say this to those of you who try to paint the environment in these two regions as if everything is hunky dory. Shame on you! Shame, shame on you!!! Every success in military operation you tell us comes with a heavy toll on innocent civilians.