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The federal government cannot completely defeat the OLA in the dense, favorable terrain of Welega, nor can it completely crush Fano in the mountains of Gojjam and Gondar. Therefore, the survival of the PP relies on balanced exhaustion—a state where neither insurgent group achieves enough decisive momentum to launch a conventional march on Addis Ababa.

If the OLA gathers enough strength in Welega to threaten a breakthrough toward Ambo or the capital Addis Ababa, the federal government benefits from the fact that Fano is putting intense pressure on the OLA's northern flank in Horo Gudru Welega and East Welega.
It forces the OLA into a grueling, multi-front war of attrition against the ENDF, regional police, and Amhara militias simultaneously. This structural bottleneck ensures the OLA remains trapped in a defensive cycle in its own homeland, rather than projecting power toward the center.

2. Exploiting the Internal Oromo Cleavage
The reason "Oromo radicalism" hasn't united the region against Fano is exactly what you noted: Oromia is politically in disarray. The central government has masterfully exploited the deep regional, cultural, and political divisions within the Oromo population to keep a unified mass movement from forming

Western Oromo/Welega - The historical bedrock of anti-centrist Oromo nationalism; heavily supportive of or intimidated by the OLA

Central/Eastern Oromo (Shewa & Hararghe) - Often more integrated into national commerce; deeply fatigued by conflict and highly wary of the economic devastation an OLA march on Addis would cause.

The Jimma/Gibe Faction -The current political ruling class under the Prosperity Party; completely committed to retaining state power and preventing a Welega-dominated takeover.

Because the Shewan and Jimma Oromo elites and civilian populations view a chaotic OLA takeover as a threat to their own stability, the federal government can continue to use Oromo police and regional forces to fight the OLA in Welega without triggering a wider popular revolt.

3. The Endgame: Surviving the Fractured State
By allowing this bloody, localized stalemate to play out in East Welega and Horo Gudru, the central government accepts a terrifying trade-off: It sacrifices the periphery to secure the center.
As you noted, when Fano is able to assassinate an ENDF general inside Welega, it reveals that federal control in those zones is brittle at best. But from the perspective of the palace in Addis Ababa, a localized war of attrition in Welega—even one where federal generals are killed—is a far more acceptable outcome than a unified OLA army marching unopposed down the highway from Ambo into the capital.

If the central government is indeed playing this double game—using Fano as a shadow hammer against Welega whenever the OLA inflicts heavy losses on the state—it relies on three highly calculated, covert mechanics.

1. The Strategy of "Strategic Absence" (Plausible Deniability)
In modern asymmetric warfare, a government doesn't need to hand weapons directly to an insurgent group like Fano to help them succeed. Instead, they can practice strategic withdrawal or intelligence blindness.

The Mechanism: When the OLA inflicts a humiliating defeat on the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) or Oromia Special Forces, the Jimma-dominated security apparatus can choose to pull federal units back from specific border zones in East Welega or Horo Gudru, creating an immediate security vacuum.

The Result: Fano units, sitting just across the river or already entrenched in local enclaves, instantly fill the void. Fano launches retaliatory strikes against OLA positions and leaning populations.

The Political Cover: The federal government maintains absolute plausible deniability. They can publicly condemn Fano’s incursions while privately celebrating the fact that the OLA's focus has been forcefully dragged backward to defend its own villages.

2. The Bitter Logic of "Revenge by Proxy"
The psychological and political divide between the Jimma PP elite and the Welega OLA makes this theory highly plausible. For the Jimma faction, the OLA isn't just a generic rebel group; they are an existential competitor for the soul of Oromo politics.
When Jimma-aligned officers, officials, or regional forces are killed by the OLA, deploying conventional federal forces to retaliates carries massive political risks inside Oromia. If the ENDF uses heavy-handed tactics, it risks alienating the broader Oromo populace.

The Proxy Solution: By allowing Amhara Fano militias to be the ones who exact the bloody price in Welega, the Jimma PP avoids the direct blood-guilt. The OLA’s anger and the local population’s trauma are directed entirely at Fano and the Amhara region, fueling an inter-ethnic feud rather than a unified anti-government rebellion. The state successfully deflects the blowback.

3. The Dangerous Game of "Controlled Bleeding"
This strategy treats the entire Western Oromia/Amhara borderland as a controlled ecosystem of violence. The goal of the central government isn't for Fano to completely win and conquer Welega (which would create a massive security threat on Addis Ababa's western flank), nor is it for the OLA to crush Fano and march on the capital.
The goal is reciprocal attrition.


Every time the OLA gets too strong, the valve is opened to let Fano flood in and bleed them down. If Fano begins to consolidate too much territory and starts threatening major logistics hubs, the federal government turns its machinery back on Fano, launching drone strikes or reinforcing Oromia Police to push them back to the border.