Cooperation between Yemen's Houthi rebels and Somalia's al Shabaab in weapons transfers, training and logistics will likely continue in the coming years and though the extent of further cooperation will remain constrained by the Houthis' need to prioritize their own military imperatives, this will not fundamentally hamper al Shabaab's capabilities. An October 2025 U.N. report confirmed that Somali security services had intercepted multiple arms shipments, including explosives and drones, en route from Yemen and arrested individuals tied to a trafficking network connecting al Qaeda affiliate al Shabaab in Somalia and Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. Investigators also documented the growing use of Somali piracy networks to facilitate Houthi maritime disruptions in the Gulf of Aden, including attacks on commercial ships and collecting ransoms from captured crew and vessels. A Somali national affiliated with al Shabaab who acted as a liaison was also identified, admitting to coordinating the travel of approximately 400 al Shabaab militants to Yemen for training and hosting two Houthi military engineers who provided al Shabaab cells with training in improvised explosive devices, drone adaptation and weapons maintenance. Additional findings in the report also suggested that Somalia functions not only as a destination for Houthi-linked weapons but also as a transit hub for arms directed to Houthi-controlled territory, transported via small dhow boats departing from northern coastal Somalia towns. On top of this, Somali intelligence has also detected direct communications between Houthi operatives and al Shabaab cells, suggesting that the relationship is active, reciprocal and deeper than previously estimated.
- The Houthis are an Islamist rebel group based in Yemen, which has made headlines in the past two years for attacking commercial and military vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden — significantly disrupting regional maritime traffic — in solidarity with Hamas during the Israel-Hamas war. Although the group recently announced an effective pause on its campaign following a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, it has threatened to resume its attacks if the ceasefire collapses.
- Al Shabaab is a Sunni Islamist militant and political group that is a recognized affiliate of al Qaeda and controls significant territory in rural southern and central Somalia. In the past year, it has advanced closer to the capital, Mogadishu. The U.S. Treasury Department estimates that the group generates about $100 million a year through the extortion of local business, taxation and illicit trade.
The mutually beneficial and recently deepening relationship between the Houthis and al Shabaab is driven by shared access to the Gulf of Aden smuggling corridor. While the two groups follow different ideologies, both operate within a geography of weak state oversight and entrenched smuggling economies. Historically, each relied on overlapping networks of arms brokers, dhow operators and intermediaries. However, the U.N.'s recent findings show that these informal linkages have involved structured cooperation, involving training, logistical support and reciprocal weapons transfers. Though the specific types of drones and explosives sold by the Houthis to al Shabaab remain unclear, it is highly likely that the weapons are more advanced than what al Shabaab would otherwise normally have access to in Somalia, potentially to include Iran-supplied or derived systems. For the Houthis, arms trafficking generates revenue and provides a low-cost means to project their anti-Western narrative by extending their influence and disruption into the Horn of Africa. For al Shabaab, access to Houthi-linked weapons, explosives, drone components and technical instruction provides capabilities that exceed what is readily available in Somalia's domestic markets. On top of this, these transportable munitions and training supplement al Shabaab's current capabilities without the logistical difficulty of moving larger systems, such as rockets, from their limited northern cells to their strongholds in central and southern Somalia.
- A 2020 report from the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime found that some weapons acquired by al Shabaab originated from Iranian shipments intended for the Houthis. In October 2024, the U.N. reported that small arms and light weapons traced to the Houthis had already entered Somalia's illicit markets.
- A third of Houthi maritime attacks in 2024 occurred outside of their radar coverage, indicating external intelligence support, according to the U.N. Such support is likely to have come partly from al Shabaab, in addition to Iran and pirate groups.
- In June 2024, CNN reported, citing unnamed U.S. officials, that U.S. intelligence was concerned about potential weapons transfers from the Houthis to al Shabaab. A February 2025 U.N. report detailed at least two encounters in Somalia in July and September 2024 between Houthi and al Shabaab officials.
The Houthis and al Shabaab will likely sustain ad hoc cooperation for the foreseeable future, despite constraints on the Houthis' intent and capability to support al Shabaab, hampering the scale and depth of future cooperation but not fundamentally weakening al Shabaab's core operational strength. In the near term, the partnership is likely to continue through the Houthis' sale of small arms, component transfers and periodic technical training, as these activities rely on existing smuggling infrastructure that operates even under counterterrorism pressure. However, multiple constraints will constrain further cooperation. These include the fact that al Shabaab's presence in northern Somalia is limited. Moving sensitive and large attack systems toward its core areas in central and southern Somalia is risky and logistically challenging. At the same time, the Houthis face the mounting risk of a renewed Israeli air campaign, which would force Houthi leadership to reprioritize finite manpower and military assets currently possessed or anticipated from Iran, as well as command attention toward the Red Sea front. A new Israeli air campaign against the Houthis, let alone the potential reignition of the Yemeni civil war in the future, would likely slow the transfer of higher-end systems such as more sophisticated drones or advanced explosive components, due to strained capacity for nonessential operations, mirroring the prioritization of their large-scale operations in the Red Sea. That said, the Houthis would likely still allow lower-risk weapons flows to persist via intermediaries, albeit perhaps in smaller quantities. But even in a scenario in which there is an upper limit on cooperation, because al Shabaab does not fundamentally depend on the Houthis for its core arsenal or revenue streams, a constraint on Houthi support would not fundamentally weaken the group's core operational strength in central and southern Somalia, nor meaningfully slow its advances toward Mogadishu. To be sure, a temporary period of Houthi refocus on their own defense could provide a narrow window for the Somali government and regional partners to apply pressure on smuggling routes across the Gulf of Aden, but any effects would likely be limited and short-lived, as the existing infrastructure is resilient, diversified and supported by networks that operate independently of any single supplier or buyer.
- Without these constraints, the trajectory of Houthi-al Shabaab cooperation will likely be in technical expertise, bolstering their military capabilities for domestic operations, as well as intelligence capacity, which would subsequently better aid the Houthis in targeting and coordinating future maritime attacks if the group revives its campaign.
