Growing partnership with al-Qaeda affiliate in Somalia gives Yemeni rebels a foothold on both sides of the Gulf of Aden.
Strengthening ties between the Houthis and al-Shabaab militants in Somalia pose an “escalatory” threat to regional stability, US officials have warned, as Yemeni rebels battle to consolidate control over the Red Sea coast following a string of recent victories.
The Houthis have sold weapons to al-Shabaab, trained hundreds of fighters in drone and explosive use and frequently travelled to areas of southern Somalia controlled by the al-Qaeda affiliate, according to security and military experts.
The traffic between Yemen’s resurgent Houthi rebels and al-Shabaab, Sunni Islamist extremists, now represents a serious danger to global trade, oil flows and shipping, they said.
The Iran-backed Houthis are consolidating a recent advance down the Red Sea coast of Yemen. They seized the port of Mocha this month and advanced on the narrow Bab al-Mandeb strait, through which a tenth of global trade flows.
At the same time, the Yemeni insurgents have been developing their tactical foothold on the other side of the Gulf of Aden through their growing ties with al-Shabaab.
A spokesperson for the US military’s Africa Command, which is responsible for operations on the continent, said the link between the two groups was a “highly concerning, escalatory threat to regional stability”.
“By bridging operational capabilities, this alliance threatens to expand al-Shabaab’s lethal reach in the Horn of Africa while simultaneously giving the Houthis deeper access to project influence and disrupt vital maritime corridors in the Red Sea and western Indian Ocean,” the spokesperson said.
Security officials in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, are wary of the impact that the closer alliance between the Houthis and al-Shabaab will have on the country, which has been torn by civil conflict for decades.
Al-Shabaab controls about 40 per cent of Somalia, mostly rural areas, and reached a fragile stalemate with the ruling government in Mogadishu last year.
For the Houthis, an alliance with al-Shabaab provides an additional vantage point.
“This makes perfect sense to the Houthi playbook, especially when it comes to the waterway — to be able to squeeze it from both sides,” said Tim Lenderking, former US special envoy for Yemen.
He said the US became concerned about the burgeoning relationship in 2024, as the militants trained together, transferred weapons and explored “how to expand the relationship and put more pressure on the Bab al-Mandeb”.
“The relationship is viewed by the Houthis with increasing importance because their game plan includes expanding influence beyond the borders of Yemen,” said Lenderking, now a principal at law firm Squire Patton Boggs.
At the time, the Houthis were targeting shipping in the Red Sea, saying they were acting in solidarity with the Palestinians after Hamas’s October 7 2023 attack triggered Israel’s war in Gaza.
Despite sectarian differences, the Houthis, who follow a radical interpretation of the Zaydi sect of Shia Islam, have been intensifying contact with al-Shabaab, according to regional experts.
At the outset the ties were largely transactional. Through taxation, duties at ports and airports, gold trafficking and extortion, al-Shabaab raises $120mn annually, according to conservative UN estimates.
Guled Ahmed, a Somali expert on regional security and author of Al-Shabaab Mafia Inc, estimates the real figure could be 10 times higher, making al-Shabaab one of the wealthiest al-Qaeda affiliates in the world.
The Houthis, on the other hand, have access to Iranian weaponry and technology, as well as a burgeoning arms industry producing missiles and drones of their own. Smuggling is also an important source of their revenue, analysts say.
“The relationship between al-Shabaab and the Houthis is evolving beyond smuggling into an operational partnership involving weapons, drones and technical expertise,” said Ahmed.
For now, he said the threat this poses to shipping is concentrated in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, where Houthi attacks are increasing pressure on a global economy already buffeted by the US war on Iran.
“If al-Shabaab acquires the expertise to operate Houthi-supplied medium-range missiles and drone boats, this network could extend into the western Indian Ocean,” he said.
Pirates on Somalia’s rugged northern coastline, who are not affiliated with al-Shabaab, have already taken advantage of the turmoil. This year, they have launched the highest number of attacks in a decade, including the seizure last month of a Turkish ship carrying weapons to Mogadishu.
According to Matt Bryden, a veteran Somalia specialist who headed the UN panel of experts that reports to the Security Council, as many as 1,500 Somali fighters have trained with the Houthis in Yemen, both from al-Shabaab and other Somali factions.
Both he and Ahmed said there was evidence that the Somali group had sought more sophisticated weaponry, including Iranian S358 surface-to-air missiles. So far these have not turned up on the battlefield in Somalia.
“There is an intent,” said Bryden. “Al-Shabaab requested high-level merchandise from the Houthis,” he said, adding that either it was not delivered or “the US may have blown it out of the water”.
This year Houthi envoys have been making more frequent visits to al-Shabaab’s stronghold at Jilib in southern Somalia, Bryden said, and using their newfound alliance in Somalia to install radar and other equipment to monitor shipping from the African coast.
The relationship was given impetus by Israel’s recognition last December of the self-declared state of Somaliland as an independent state — both al-Shabaab and the Houthis subscribe to a fiercely anti-Israel, anti-US doctrine.
Israel’s decision to become the first government to formally recognise Somaliland was widely perceived in the region to signal an ambition to establish a military presence on the Gulf of Aden from which to combat the Houthis.
The United Arab Emirates, Israel’s closest Arab ally which previously fought the Houthis as part of a Saudi-led Arab coalition, already has control of a naval base and airstrip at the Somaliland port of Berbera.
“As far as we can tell, what the Houthis want is a relationship with another armed actor that is anti-Israel as the Israelis try and develop a footprint in Somaliland,” Peter Salisbury, adjunct professor at Columbia University, who has been researching the relationship for the past two years, said.
“The Houthis want permission to recruit in Somalia and they want the ability to use Somalia to both surveil the Gulf of Aden and launch attacks,” he said.
The Houthis have been training al-Shabaab fighters in the use of drones, improvised explosive devices and battlefield tactics, he said, but their long-term ambition for the relationship remains difficult to read.
“It could turn out there was some training and some arms moved but it didn’t amount to much,” he said. “Or it could turn out the Houthis are doing for Shabaab what the Iranians and Hizbollah did for them, which is slowly but surely upskilling them while increasing their dependence on them.”
Source: FT
