Yemen’s Houthi rebels and Somalia’s al-Shabaab terrorist group are separated by the narrow Gulf of Aden. Their emerging collaboration to exchange intelligence, weapons and technical expertise presents a threat to East Africa and its maritime zone.
It’s a relationship that is evolving in dangerous ways, according to former Somali national security advisor Hussein Sheikh-Ali, who now leads the Saldhig Institute, a Mogadishu-based research organization.
Al-Shabaab already was al-Qaida’s best-funded and deadliest affiliate. Now with Houthi assistance, it has access to advanced technology and training.
“Al-Shabaab members have received training in Yemen on drones and explosives; Houthi personnel have visited al-Shabaab’s Galgala stronghold for exchanges on asymmetric warfare; and joint financial ventures in Somali extractive industries are now documented in the Saldhig Institute’s findings,” he told Somalilander news website Geeska in a February 2026 interview.
“This is no longer ad hoc, it is a functional strategic partnership governed by mutual utility rather than formal treaties.”
The gravest emerging risk, according to Middle East researcher Luke Zakedis, is that the Houthis transfer drone and missile technology to al-Shabaab fighters and train them to produce their own modern, cheap suicide drones.
“Where before ballistic missiles and military-grade attack drones would require complex propellants or components that were prohibitively elaborate and expensive for terror cells, a Houthi attack drone can cost as little as $10,000 to produce,” he wrote in the Jamestown Foundation’s April 17 edition of its Terrorism Monitor publication.
Zakedis added that “it’s reasonable to assume that if one al-Qaeda affiliate learns to replicate the Houthis’ approach, others could do the same, posing a much broader global risk.”
Houthi trainers regularly travel to Somalia’s Bari, eastern Sanaag and Lower Jubba regions, where al-Shabaab coordinates their movements along with the smuggling of Houthi weapons, ammunition, drone components and explosive devices, according to Matthew Bryden, a former United Nations official in Somalia and director of the Somaliland-based Sahan Research & Consulting Center.
There is considerable evidence of “expanding Houthi engagement in Somalia since 2023, not only with al-Shabaab but also with the Islamic State group in Somalia and clan militias,” he told Alhurra television network for a May 13 report.
Bryden said al-Shabaab has recruited and sent hundreds of Somali youths to Yemen for ground and naval combat training, echoing a November 2025 report by a U.N. Panel of Experts monitoring al-Shabaab. The panel detailed how al-Shabaab sent four groups of about 30 fighters. One group departed in late October 2024 from the Lower Shabelle coast aboard a Yemeni boat and arrived in Yemen’s port city of Hodeidah for about two months of training on machine guns, anti-aircraft weapons and explosive devices.
Sheikh-Ali said the emerging nexus between the groups is likely to deepen and continue to threaten the Horn of Africa.
“For Al-Shabaab, Yemen is the only accessible external source of advanced weaponry — drones, IED technology, naval mines — and a rear base for training when pressure in Somalia intensifies. It also provides alternative financial channels to evade sanctions,” he said.
“For the Houthis, Somalia offers a low-governance coastline to … establish alternative smuggling routes and project influence into the Horn of Africa. It also provides operational testing grounds for new tactics before deploying them in Yemen. This is not ideological solidarity; it is capability swapping between two sanction-hit actors seeking survival and regional leverage.”
