Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) -- Ally

The Oromo Liberation Front is an ethnic separatist guerrilla group operating in the horn of Africa.  Their goal is to carve out a separate state within the current borders of Ethiopia as a homeland for the Oromo people, currently estimated to make up some 40% of Ethiopia's population.  The "homeland" presently claimed by the OLF would occupy more than half of Ethiopia's current territory, including the capital, Addis Ababa.  The group formed in 1973 to fight for Oromo self-determination, driven in part by the repressive practices employed against Oromo separatists by the Abyssinian leadership in Addis Ababa.  Although a more moderate Tigrean regime took power in 1991, the OLF has continued its terrorist campaign, signaling that nothing short of an Oromo state will bring about an end to the violence.  Parties from the neighboring countries of Somalia and Eritrea are suspected of supporting the OLF in an effort to weaken Ethiopia.

OLF elements have killed 28 people in two separate terrorist attacks since 2000.  The first, in March of 2000, occurred when a truck from neighboring Kenya drove over a landmine that had been set by the OLF, although it was probably intended for an Ethiopian target.  The more recent attack involved a small explosive detonated at the Ethiopian Railway Commission in the Southeastern town of Daire Dawa.  Each attack killed 14 people.  Since the 2000 landmine disaster, the Ethiopian government has been on an aggressive campaign to eliminate the OLF and has recently scored successes against the organization, including mass arrests and the liquidation of key leaders.  The OLF has not conducted a major terrorist attack since 2002, but it is not possible to estimate the likelihood of future attacks since no comprehensive peace arrangement or ceasefire is in place.

Nothing is known about Overthrown Anarchist Faction other than the details of their only attack, and those details do not provide much insight into the group's structure or ideology.  The group torched two cars belonging to the German embassy to protest the "bestiality of the Greek police," (Agence France Press, 3/29/2000) who had accidentally shot a young girl in Salonika a few days earlier.  Torching cars is a relatively unsophisticated form of terrorist attack, which suggests that the group neither experienced nor highly structured.  The fact that the group's choice of target (the German embassy) is in no way connected with the event they meant to protest also suggests a lack of planning and sophistication.  This impression of disorganization is further reinforced by the fact that the group disappeared after the attack.