Two battles of the Ethiopian Civil War were fought in or near Addi Nebreid by rival groups rebelling against the Derg regime. In July 1976, 500 soldiers of the Ethiopian Democratic Union were surrounded and defeated near Addi Nebreid by an armed group of the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front (TPLF) under Mehari Tekle ("Mussie"). The TPLF captured 125 of their opponent's men, killing or wounding the rest, and capturing a large number of badly needed semi-automatic rifles. The two groups clashed again at Addi Nebreid on 12 March 1977, with the EDU advancing on seven entrenched companies of the TPLF. The fighting raged for two days until the TPLF units, by that point out of ammunition, retreated in good order having inflicted substantial losses on their rivals. "From then on," writes Aregawi Berhe, one of the TPLF commanders in the battle, "the EDU could not proceed through TPLF-held territory without paying a heavy cost to mobilize the feudal and "shifta" elements in the central region and beyond."