Ethiopia launched its third air strike this week on the capital of the northern Tigray region on Wednesday, stepping up a campaign to weaken rebellious Tigrayan forces in an almost year-old war.

Tigrai Television, controlled by the region's Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), said the attack targeted the centre of the city of Mekelle but gave no details of casualties or damage.

Ethiopia's government said the air strike targeted buildings where Tigrayan forces were repairing armaments.

The TPLF has "been adept at hiding munitions and heavy artillery in places of worship and using ordinary Tigrayans as a human shield", Ethiopia's government spokesperson, Legesse Tulu, said.

Two witnesses and a humanitarian source in Mekelle told Reuters that the strike appeared to have targeted Mesfin Industrial Engineering PLC, a major factory complex in the city which the government believes supports the TPLF.

"They are desperate on the war front,” TPLF leader Debretsion Gebremichael said of the government forces. “My interpretation is they are bombing us because they are losing on the ground and it’s their reprisal. The fact that they are bombing shows they don’t care about Tigrayan civilians."

He said the strike did not hit the engineering complex, but hit another private company compound, but he had no further details.

He spoke to Reuters by satellite phone from an undisclosed location. He said he did not have information on possible casualties.  

The blast shattered the windows of Mekelle General Hospital, about one kilometre away, and damaged nearby homes, said one of the witnesses, a doctor at the hospital.

"We have received five (wounded) people... Four of them were employees of the factory and the fifth one is a lady whose lives near the factory. Her house was destroyed by the air strike," the doctor said.

INTENSIFIED FIGHTING

Tigrai Television posted photographs of what appeared to be plumes of billowing smoke and said in a statement on Facebook that the strike was at 10:24 am (0724 GMT). Reuters geolocated the images to Mekelle.

The two sides have been fighting for almost a year in a conflict that has killed thousands of people and displaced more than two million.

Mesfin Industrial Engineering is an equipment manufacturer and car and truck assembly plant that was part of EFFORT, a TPLF-owned conglomerate.

After war broke out last November, the government froze the company's bank accounts, saying that there was evidence that it was supporting the TPLF. The company could not be reached for comment. Most communications in Mekelle are down.

The strike comes two days after two air strikes hit the city. The TPLF accused the government of launching the attacks. A government official initially denied the accusation but state media later reported the air force had conducted a strike.

The attacks follow intensified fighting in two other northern regions, where the military is trying to recover territory taken by the TPLF, which recaptured Mekelle and most of the rest of Tigray several months ago.

In July, the TPLF pushed into the two other regions, Amhara and Afar, and several hundred thousand more people fled their homes, according to the United Nations.

Last week, after the TPLF said the military had launched an offensive in Amhara, the military said that "they (the TPLF) have opened war on all fronts" and said the military was inflicting heavy casualties.

"The federal air strikes on Mekelle appear to be part of efforts to weaken Tigray’s armed resistance, which has recently made further gains in eastern Amhara region, with fighting ongoing in some areas," said Will Davison, a senior analyst on Ethiopia at the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, a think-tank.

"Along with superior manpower, control of the skies is one of the few remaining areas of military advantage for the federal government," Davison said.