In February, just a few kilometers from the Omani border, a drone targeted a Toyota Corolla in the city of Al-Ghaydah, the capital of Yemen’s eastern Al-Mahrah province. Later, the identity of the target was revealed: Abdishakur Bahi Ali, a Somali leader in Al-Shabaab, who was carrying a Yemeni passport issued by the immigration authorities in Sanaa, which is under Houthi control, under the alias Abdulqader Yahya Ali Ahmed Al-Zubaidi.
A vehicle targeted in Al Ghaydah (social media)
The passport was issued in late 2023 to facilitate, according to sources who spoke to Alhurra, his movement between Yemeni provinces and across border crossings.
The issuance of an official document by the de facto authorities in Sanaa to a leader of a movement that is supposedly on the opposite ideological side “is not an incidental detail,” Majed Al-Madhaji, head of the Sanaa Center for Strategic Studies, told Alhurra. He said the matter points to a level of institutional facilitation rather than an isolated personal decision.
The Houthis originate from a Zaidi background, while Al-Shabaab belongs to the Salafi-jihadist current linked to Al-Qaeda. Nevertheless, practical interests in smuggling, training, and efforts to control maritime routes appear capable of overriding ideological differences.
Al-Madhaji also points to the role of Abdulwahid Abu Ras, the former deputy for external operations in the Houthi intelligence and security apparatus, who was later appointed deputy foreign minister in Sanaa. He believes Abu Ras may be one of the key figures behind the Houthis’ expansion toward the Horn of Africa.
This characterization is not limited to analysts and researchers. The U.S. counterterrorism strategy issued by the White House in May 2026 explicitly included “cooperation between Al-Shabaab and the Houthis” among the emerging terrorist alliances that the U.S. administration considers part of the current threat environment.
A passport allegedly found with a senior Al-Shabaab figure (social media)
Matthew Bryden, former UN official in Somalia and director of the Sahan Research, told Alhurra that 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.”
According to Bryden, Houthi trainers regularly travel to Bari, eastern Sanaag, and Lower Jubba regions, while Somali facilitators arrange their movements and the smuggling of weapons, ammunition, drone components, and explosive devices. He added that hundreds of Somali youths have been recruited for training in Yemen, including naval and ground combat training. This account aligns with a report by the UN Security Council Panel of Experts monitoring Al-Shabaab.
The report, issued on November 28, 2025, states that Al-Shabaab sent fighters to Yemen for training in four groups, each consisting of around 30 fighters, during the previous year. According to the panel, one of these groups departed in late October 2024 from the Lower Shabelle coast aboard a Yemeni boat and arrived in Mukalla before being transferred to Hodeidah for approximately two months of training on machine guns, anti-aircraft weapons, and explosive devices.
However, the report stops short of describing what is happening as a fully developed military alliance. Instead, it refers to “links” that are still under investigation.
Michael Horton, a specialist in security and development affairs in the Middle East and Africa, believes this pattern is not unusual for the Houthis. In his view, “the Houthis have a long history of being pragmatic with respect to their interactions with a host of groups and organizations that do not necessarily align with them politically or ideologically. AQAP is another example of this.” Despite the publicly declared hostility between the two sides, reports have spoken of prisoner exchanges, information-sharing regarding common adversaries, and limited cooperation based on mutual benefit.
Fighters from the Somali militant group Al-Shabaab (Reuters)
Horton believes “it is likely AQAP that opened the door to al-Shabaab for the Houthis.” These links derive their importance from being financially profitable as much as they are security-related. Weapons are cheaper in Yemen and more expensive in Somalia — a price difference that can reach fivefold and has long been exploited by smugglers across the Gulf of Aden.
The UN Panel of Experts report does not provide a precise figure for the scale of weapons smuggling between Yemen and Somalia. However, the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime stated in a 2021 report that weapons supplied by Iran to the Houthis in Yemen were smuggled across the Gulf of Aden into Somalia, where armed groups including the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab operate.
The report relied on data from more than 400 weapons documented at 13 sites inside Somalia over eight months, in addition to weapons seized aboard 13 boats intercepted by military vessels. In tracing financial flows, the initiative documented 176 financial transactions linked to arms dealers between Yemen and Somalia worth more than $3.7 million between 2014 and 2020. Individual transfers ranged from $400 to $71,000, while three importers in Puntland accounted for approximately 84 percent of these flows.
Specific names also emerged within these networks, most notably Abdirahman Mohamed Omar, known as “Dafci.” The initiative described him as one of the most active illicit arms importers in Puntland and attributed to him 98 of the 176 transfers linked to weapons, worth more than $2.1 million.
In November 2022, the United States Department of the Treasury placed him under sanctions as part of a weapons-smuggling network between Yemen and Somalia. The department said he had facilitated the transfer of weapons since 2017 to ISIS in Somalia and Al-Shabaab and had conducted transactions exceeding $2 million, including nearly $300,000 sent to a facilitator linked to AQAP.
Arms smuggling between Yemen and Somalia
Nevertheless, Omar Mahmood, a researcher at the International Crisis Group, describes the relationship between the Houthis and Al-Shabaab as “commercial rather than a strategic alliance,” based on the group paying in exchange for access to new weapons and technologies.
Here, the importance of “new technologies” becomes evident.
Horton says Al-Shabaab is “keen to acquire more expertise with drones. They are especially interested in FPV drones which the Houthis have acquired, modify, and likely manufacture or rather assemble,” and that the Houthis are capable of providing this in exchange for money. This is reinforced by what the Sanaa Center reported in April 2025 regarding a shipment of equipment intercepted en route to the Houthis that included systems linked to FPV drones, small engines, and control and monitoring systems, indicating the group’s efforts to expand its drone capabilities.
The significance of these drones lies in their low cost and their ability to provide operators with direct visual feedback from a camera mounted on the drone, allowing reconnaissance or targeting with greater precision relative to their cost. For Al-Shabaab, which has not yet demonstrated a broad shift toward advanced drone attacks, obtaining this kind of expertise could represent a qualitative leap.
However, there is still no evidence that the group has begun using this technology offensively on a wide scale.
In general, the relationship between the Houthis and Al-Shabaab appears to be one of mutual facilitation operating within what Michael Horton describes as the Houthis’ “gray zone foreign policy.” Its danger lies in the fact that it does not require an official declaration to become influential. It is enough for each side to obtain what it lacks: the Houthis gain routes, networks, and intelligence on the African side of the Gulf of Aden, while Al-Shabaab gains weapons, training, and technical expertise.
The article is a translation of the original Arabic.
Ezat Wagdi Ba Awaidhan
Ezat Wagdi Ba Awaidhan, a Yemeni journalist and documentary filmmaker based in Washington, D.C., holds a master's degree in media studies.
