War / Africa
Ethiopian Civil War
Ethiopia's multi-front war deepens as Pretoria collapses, a regional counter-axis hardens, and Abiy's supermajority locks in insurgent grievances.
The Maghreb
Algeria and Morocco have been locked in a cold rivalry since 1975, when Spain withdrew from Western Sahara and Algeria began arming the Polisario Front against Moroccan rule there.
The two countries had already fought a brief border war in 1963. They share a 1,600-kilometer border that has been closed since 1994, one of the longest-shut land frontiers in the world. Algeria severed diplomatic relations in 2021 and killed the gas pipeline running through Morocco a year later. The Gulf states and Washington tilt toward Rabat.
The rivalry sets the ceiling on what North Africa can do as a region: no integrated market, no shared security, no unified Sahel policy.
Morocco's July 30-31 Ceuta operation has settled into its strategic aftermath: 72,000 crossings, 86 deaths, and a Schengen fracture that directed European political pressure at Spain while Rabat absorbed none.
EU interior ministers endorsed Spain's response on August 4, but Italy's suspension of free movement with Spain holds and 22 member states are pressing for stronger external borders, meaning the episode's institutional damage outlasts the crossing itself.
Weekly net escalation pressure, last 90 days
The Ceuta operation's timing is the most analytically significant detail: it followed Spain's prime minister visiting Algeria and announcing a new phase in bilateral relations by ten days.
The Schengen fracture is the durable second-order consequence: Italy's suspension of free movement with Spain holds despite the EU ministerial endorsement.
The unaccompanied minors residual, hundreds of under-eighteens stranded in Ceuta with shelter capacity exhausted and Spanish law barring easy deportation.
Algeria backs Polisario Front diplomatically and logistically; Morocco backed by UAE, Saudi Arabia, and tacitly by US following 2020 normalization deal
War / Africa
Ethiopia's multi-front war deepens as Pretoria collapses, a regional counter-axis hardens, and Abiy's supermajority locks in insurgent grievances.
War / Africa
Sudan's war grinds on as US chemical weapons sanctions, Iranian drone contracts, and a Russian basing deal entrench both sides.
Polisario Front operates from Algerian territory as Algiers's primary coercive pressure vector against Morocco in Western Sahara.
Sonatrach functions as a quasi-diplomatic instrument, deploying European gas contract leverage and Trans-Saharan Gas Pipeline momentum to contest Moroccan.
Niger's junta serves as a structurally fragile but critical transit node for Algeria's Trans-Saharan pipeline route.
Mali's junta maintains a security alignment with Algeria that limits Moroccan diplomatic and commercial reach into the central Sahel.
Morocco's Royal Armed Forces-linked commercial networks in Mauritania function as a counter-influence layer against Algerian Sahel penetration.