March Risk Barometer

ECUADOR | Ethiopia & Eritrea

In Global Guardian's monthly Risk Barometer, our Intelligence Team highlights current global hotspots with the potential to impact your business operations and travel. Read below for analysis on the threats we are closely monitoring this month and click here to subscribe for regular intelligence updates.

U.S. Strike in Ecuador Offers a Preview of the Trump Administration's LATAM Plan

The 06 March joint American and Ecuadorian strike against a guerrilla training camp near Ecuador's border with Colombia provides a preview of what expanded United States (U.S.) counter-cartel operations in Latin America could look like following the recent regional counter-cartel summit. It’s likely that this new approach by the U.S., which includes kinetic strikes against organized crime in Ecuador and other nations in Latin America, will raise the risk of retaliatory violence against state forces or civilian targets in affected regions.

• Global Guardian advises against non-essential travel to Los Ríos, El Oro, Guayas, and Santo Domingo provinces. Travelers in these provinces face elevated risk from both criminal retaliatory attacks and disruptions resulting from military and police operations, including curfew enforcement.
• Monitor official Ecuadorian government alerts and local news media for indicators of gang retaliatory activity, including reports of explosive incidents, targeted violence at commercial sites, or infrastructure attacks.

Situation Report

On 06 March, U.S. and Ecuadorian forces conducted a joint airstrike on a training camp operated by the FARC dissident group Los Comandos de la Frontera in Ecuador’s Sucumbíos province near the Colombian border. The operation, conducted at the request of Ecuador’s government, happened in a region known for drug trafficking and production.

The strikes follow Secretary of War Pete Hegseth's remarks at the Americas Counter Cartel Conference on 05 March, where delegates from 17 Latin American nations, including Ecuador, gathered. Hegseth framed the initiative as a departure from what he called "benign neglect" of the Western Hemisphere.

On 02 March, Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa announced a joint operation with the U.S., describing it as a "new phase in the combat against narcoterrorism and illegal mining." Operations are scheduled for 15 March – 30 March in four provinces: Los Ríos, El Oro, Guayas, and Santo Domingo. The government imposed a civilian curfew in these provinces for the duration of the operation.

Timeline

• 07 March 2026: Trump Administration issues a proclamation outlining the objectives of the U.S. and partner nations, including training, eliminating foreign influence, and using military force to demolish “criminal cartels and foreign terrorist organizations.”
• 06 March 2026: U.S. and Ecuadorian forces conduct a joint strike on a FARC dissident group training camp.
• 05 March 2026: Secretary Hegseth hosts the Americas Counter Cartel Conference at U.S. Southern Command; 17 nations attend, including Ecuador.
• 02 March 2026: President Noboa announces the joint operation and civilian curfew.
• 29 December 2025: Ecuador announces the seizure of 214 metric tons of narcotics in 2025.
• 14 October 2025: In response to an Ecuadorian government crackdown on illegal mining, Los Lobos detonates multiple car bombs in and around Guayaquil, killing one civilian, injuring 26, and damaging a bridge.
• 04 September 2025: The U.S. State Department designates Los Choneros and Los Lobos as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) and Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs).

Analysis

The strike coincides with the launch of a broader joint security operation across several Ecuadorian provinces as well as a separate event where the U.S. hosted Latin American military and civilian leaders for a regional counter-cartel summit aimed at strengthening cooperation against transnational criminal organizations. Together, these developments reveal a shift toward more direct U.S. operational involvement in regional counter-narcotics campaigns.

Over the last decade, Ecuador transformed from one of Latin America's more stable nations into one of its most violent, due to the nation's growing role as the primary cocaine transit corridor connecting Andean producers to U.S. and European markets. In the 2000s, large port cities like Guayaquil attracted Colombian and Mexican trafficking networks, which initially contracted local Ecuadorian gangs as escorts for drug shipments. Groups like Los Lobos and Los Choneros eventually transitioned from hired protection gangs into independent criminal enterprises, flush with cocaine revenue and competing violently for territory, shipping routes, and illicit mining operations.

President Noboa has claimed that approximately 70% of the world's cocaine now flows through the country. In 2025, Ecuador seized 214 metric tons of narcotics, mostly cocaine, a figure second only to Colombia, where a large portion of the world’s cocaine is produced. Under Noboa, the government responded by declaring a state of emergency, reclassifying several major criminal groups as terrorist organizations, and deploying state forces to combat armed groups. Despite these measures, violence has largely continued, likely influencing the Ecuadorian government’s receptiveness to U.S. involvement. 

Looking Forward

The U.S.-led strikes on 06 March in Sucumbíos province will act as a “proof of concept” for further U.S. operations across the region. Ecuador’s two largest criminal organizations, Los Lobos and Los Choneros, have a history of retaliating against civilians during government crackdowns, as seen in the Guayaquil car bomb attacks carried out by Los Lobos in October 2025. The announcement of a multilateral military operation will likely provoke a similar response. The highest-risk targets for retaliatory violence include commercial areas, transportation infrastructure, and crowded public spaces in provinces that feature counter-criminal operations.

Renewed Tigray Conflict Looms Large

The Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) is poised to attack rebels in the country’s restive Tigray region amidst rising tensions with neighboring Eritrea. Renewed conflict between Addis Ababa, Mekele, and Asmara threatens to transform a series of relatively local conflicts into a regional conflagration as belligerent actors in Sudan, South Sudan, and Somalia could become entangled in an expanded war across the Horn of Africa. The resumption of war between Ethiopia and Tigray rebels would likely precipitate the rapid deterioration of the security situation in large parts of Ethiopia currently considered relatively safe and seriously impede travel in the region.

• Monitor the status and location of conflict within Ethiopia and plan travel accordingly.
• Avoid all travel to the Tigray region and reconsider non-essential travel to Ethiopia and Eritrea in general as rapid escalation could result in stranded personnel.
• Create contingency plans for foreign nationals based in Ethiopia and Eritrea and develop triggers for their evacuation ahead of the potential outbreak of war.

Situation Report

Ethiopia is relocating thousands of troops to the Tigray region, which forms much of the national border with Eritrea. The federal forces being deployed to Tigray—supported by tanks, heavy weaponry, and drones—have been moved away from active fighting with rebel militants from the Amhara Fano National Movement (AFNM) and the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) in the Amhara and Oromia regions respectively. Ethiopia has also mobilized former soldiers back to their formations. While Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed maintains that he prefers dialogue, on 04 March, the deputy leader of the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), Amanuel Assefa, claimed that “the federal government is preparing itself to wage a war against Tigray.”

Accordingly, the TPLF is consolidating its positions in anticipation of a federal offensive. In late January, the TPLF’s military wing, the Tigrayan Defense Forces (TDF), seized key towns from federal and Amharan ethno-nationalist militia forces in the Tslemti and Alamata districts. Supporting the TDF, Eritrea’s military has been observed moving men and material into the Tigray region.

Eritrea has also been supplying the AFNM forces engaged in fighting against government-aligned Amharan militias. Anticipating the resumption of hostilities in the region, residents in Tigray are stockpiling food and fuel, and withdrawing cash en masse, leading to supply disruptions. 

Background

Tigray is a pivotal region for Ethiopia’s politics—both internally and externally. The TPLF dominated Ethiopia’s government for over three decades before ethno-nationalist uprisings led to their ouster in 2018. From 2020 to 2022, Tigray fought a deadly war with the new federal government led by Prime Minister Abiy. In that war—which killed some 600,000 people—the Ethiopian federal government formed an alliance with neighboring Eritrea, whose forces were likely decisive. That alliance, however, has deteriorated in the face of Abiy’s insistence that Ethiopia has a right to the Eritrean port of Assab on the Red Sea, roughly 30 miles from the Ethiopian border.

The high costs Ethiopians pay for imported goods, shipped in mostly through Djibouti and Somalia, are a political liability that Abiy is eager to alleviate. Abiy’s rhetoric surrounding the port has become increasingly bellicose over the past three years. Seizing the port would not be the first time Abiy alienated a neighbor in pursuit of economic development. For example, the construction of the Millennium Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile was vehemently opposed by Egypt. Egypt and Ethiopia now find themselves on opposite sides of a proxy war in their shared neighbor Sudan, where Ethiopia supports the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and Egypt supports the embattled Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF). Ethiopia’s support for the RSF extends as far as hosting an RSF drone base and training camp on Ethiopian territory—supplied by the United Arab Emirates (UAE)—not far from the Millennium Dam. Ethiopia’s stance in Sudan and now in Tigray is borne of a concern that Ethiopia’s borders could be used to arm and aid its breakaway ethno-nationalist regional rebels—an existential threat for Addis Ababa.

Forecast

Ethiopia will likely launch an offensive against the TDF and Eritrean forces in Tigray in the short term. This probable offensive is predicated on the Ethiopian assumption that the government-aligned militia forces in Amhara and Oromia will be able to prevent territorial losses in those theaters as Ethiopia uses its air superiority and concentrated regular army to degrade TDF and Eritrean forces. Addis Ababa has likely judged that the TPLF is the main threat to the current government’s political power domestically and could galvanize the OLA and AFNM into an effective military coalition.

Ethiopian forces are unlikely to secure a quick victory against the TDF or Eritrea. In the 2020–2022 Tigrayan war, the TDF staged an effective guerilla resistance before pushing to within 200km of Addis Ababa in a coordinated offensive with the OLA, all while battling Eritrean forces as well as the Ethiopian federal army. Facing ongoing Amharan and Oromo insurgencies elsewhere, Ethiopia’s federal forces are likely to become bogged down in a protracted conflict.

A protracted war between Ethiopia and Tigray and Eritrea would present regional actors, particularly Egypt, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia with opportunities to support various factions in pursuit of their interests. Belligerents in Sudan’s civil war are also likely to become more involved in a protracted Tigrayan conflict, as cross-border actions by both sides would increase the level of operational freedom in an otherwise relatively static conflict.

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