War / Africa
Ethiopian Civil War
Pretoria is dead: TPLF installs Debretsion, Eritrea coordinates multi-front pressure, and Addis Ababa restructures Tigray administratively.
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.
Trajectory
Algeria has compounded structural advantage across energy and Sahel tracks simultaneously, with no direct military escalation but a widening asymmetry in coercive capital.
The gas renegotiation offensive, extracting 15-20 percent price increases from Rome and Madrid amid Iranian disruption of Qatari LNG, converts European energy dependency into political leverage directly deployable against Morocco's EU relationships.
It matters because the territorial dispute continues to tie down Algeria and.
Weekly net escalation pressure, last 90 days
Analysis
Algeria's gas renegotiation offensive is not purely commercial: the 15-20 percent price increases extracted from Rome and Madrid convert European energy dependency into political capital deployable against Morocco's EU.
Morocco's African Lion 2025 anchor role with AFRICOM retains symbolic value but is structurally depreciating as European leaders across the ideological spectrum distance from Trump.
Algeria's simultaneous Sahel energy push, Sonatrach in Niger, $88 million to Burkina Faso, and deals with Ivory Coast.
Historical Context
The Sand War erupts between Algeria and Morocco over disputed Saharan border territories inherited from French colonial mapping, establishing a foundational military and territorial grievance between the two states.
Spain withdraws from Western Sahara under the Madrid Accords, ceding administration to Morocco and Mauritania; Algeria immediately backs the Polisario Front's armed insurgency and recognizes the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, making Western Sahara the conflict's permanent core flashpoint.
Full-scale guerrilla war begins as Polisario, trained and supplied from Algerian territory, launches raids deep into Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara and southern Morocco, killing dozens of soldiers and forcing civilian evacuations.
A UN-brokered ceasefire ends active fighting between Morocco and Polisario, but a promised independence referendum is never held; Algeria and Morocco remain locked in a proxy standoff with no resolution mechanism functioning.
After a terrorist attack in Marrakech that Morocco blamed on Algerian intelligence, both countries close their shared 1,600-kilometer border, halting trade and movement; the border remains shut, making it one of the longest-closed land borders in the world.
The brief Perejil Island crisis between Morocco and Spain draws Algeria into broader regional positioning, exposing how European powers, gas contracts, and migration politics intersect with the core Algerian-Moroccan rivalry.
Algeria formally severs diplomatic relations with Morocco, citing alleged Moroccan support for Kabylie separatists and military cooperation with Israel following Morocco's Abraham Accords normalization, sharply escalating the cold rivalry.
Algeria cancels the Maghreb-Europe gas pipeline running through Morocco, rerouting supply through the Medgaz undersea cable to Spain, weaponizing energy infrastructure and deepening the economic and geopolitical rupture.
Algeria backs Polisario Front diplomatically and logistically; Morocco backed by UAE, Saudi Arabia, and tacitly by US following 2020 normalization deal
Continue With
All conflictsWar / Africa
Pretoria is dead: TPLF installs Debretsion, Eritrea coordinates multi-front pressure, and Addis Ababa restructures Tigray administratively.
War / Africa
Sudan's drone-attrition war grinds on as the Quad ceasefire sits unaccepted and the Ethiopia rupture opens a new regional escalation.
Proxy Network
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, with Algerian state energy deals in Niger, Burkina Faso.
Mali's junta maintains a security alignment with Algeria that structurally complicates Moroccan outreach in the western Sahel and reinforces Algiers's buffer.
Morocco's Royal Armed Forces-linked commercial networks in Mauritania serve as a counter-influence layer against Algerian Sahel penetration.