Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Africa Brief.

The highlights this week: Algeria balances its ties to Iran with its role as a critical gas supplier to the West, Egypt imposes a monthlong energy-rationing policy, and France reportedly disinvites South Africa from the G-7 leaders’ summit under pressure from the United States.

Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Africa Brief.

The highlights this week: Algeria balances its ties to Iran with its role as a critical gas supplier to the West, Egypt imposes a monthlong energy-rationing policy, and France reportedly disinvites South Africa from the G-7 leaders’ summit under pressure from the United States.

The war in Iran has put Algeria in an awkward position, as it balances its strategic alignment with Iran while also benefiting from soaring energy prices as a critical gas supplier to the West.

At the outbreak of the war, when U.S. and Israeli strikes assassinated Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Algeria had a relatively muted response. Although Algiers expressed “support for its Arab brothers in the face of the unacceptable violations they have suffered,” it did not condemn the United States.

Algeria’s restraint on the Iranian crisis “undoubtedly reflects Algiers’ desire to avoid any alignment in a conflict with multiple ramifications,” wrote the editorial board of the newspaper Le Matin d’Algérie on March 5.

Algeria and Iran have had close ties for decades, rooted in a shared “resistance” ideology against Israel and a mutual desire to expand their influence in West Africa.

Iran also supports Sahrawi independence—an important issue for Algeria, which hosts the Polisario Front, the Sahrawi liberation movement fighting Morocco’s sovereignty claim over Western Sahara. Morocco severed diplomatic relations with Iran in 2018, accusing Tehran’s proxy Hezbollah of supplying arms to the Polisario Front, though some analysts dispute this claim.

Despite this, Algeria seems to be increasingly hedging its bets amid changing geopolitical winds, looking to benefit from the energy disruptions sparked by the conflict in Iran.

“We have our own strategy: diversify our partners, be less dependent on Western supply chains, and avoid any conflict during the remaining three years of [U.S. President Donald] Trump’s term,” one anonymous Algerian diplomat recently told the Middle East Eye.

Algeria holds the continent’s second-largest proven natural gas reserves after Nigeria and is the biggest gas producer in Africa. Since the 1960s, it has exported gas to Europe.

Last week, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares met separately with Algerian President........

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