Security forces in Ethiopia have shot and killed the suspected mastermind of Saturday’s attempted coup in Ethiopia’s Amhara region, according to a senior government official.
The Associated Press reports that prime minster Abiy Ahmed’s spokesman Nigussu Tilahun said on Monday that Brig. Gen. Asamnew Tsige was killed on the outskirts of Bahir Dar, capital of the restive northern Amhara region.
He also indicated that other plotters had been arrested.
Asamnew had been on the run since Saturday, when soldiers loyal to him attacked a meeting of the Amhara government, killing the regional governor and his adviser.
The government had deployed a heavy contingent of pro-government forces in Bahir Dar and the capital, Addis Ababa.
That attack was followed hours later by the assassination in Addis Ababa of the Ethiopian army chief and a retired army general by a bodyguard.
Speaking on state television on Saturday, Abiy said the general had been trying to prevent plotters carrying out a coup in Amhara state, one of Ethiopia’s nine federal states.
There has been sporadic ethnic violence in Amhara and other parts of Ethiopia in recent years.
Since taking office in 2018, the prime minister has been on a path of transformation in the horn of African nation.
The reforms in Africa’s second-most populous country have won him widespread international praise.
Ethiopians on Monday were marking a day of mourning with flags are flying at half-mast.
