Over the last two years, Somalia’s al-Shabaab terrorists have established a relationship with Houthi rebels in Yemen — one that could alter the decades-long battle between the al-Qaida affiliate and government forces in Mogadishu.
A new report by The Century Foundation (TCF) public policy research institution outlines the evolving ties between al-Shabaab and the Houthis as the Somalia-based terrorists seek to gain both knowledge and, potentially, technology from the Iranian-backed Houthis.
So far, the relationship has been built around training and knowledge transfer, with hundreds of al-Shabaab fighters traveling from their base in southern Somalia to western Yemen to learn drone operation, bomb making and small arms use.
Al-Shabaab and the Houthis have nothing in common culturally, linguistically or theologically. Analysts say their relationship is largely transactional: Al-Shabaab wants access to Houthi weaponry, particularly antiaircraft technology; for the Houthis, a footprint on Somali territory could give them greater leverage over shipping through the Gulf of Aden and Bab el-Mandeb Strait while also helping them recruit new fighters. Al-Shabaab fighters have recently died on battlefields in Yemen.
“Al-Shabaab is no doubt impressed by the Houthis’ ability to beat back air attacks and launch their own cross-border strikes,” TCF researchers Peter Salisbury, Nadwa Al-Dawsari and Jay Bahadur wrote in their report, based on in-depth interviews, public and private available data, and satellite imagery.
“It is difficult to know what concessions the Houthis and al-Shabaab have been able to extract from each other,” they wrote.
No current evidence shows that the Houthis have given al-Shabaab access to their own locally manufactured drones and missiles, the researchers noted.
“This may reflect a lack of trust between the two groups, or a lack of al-Shabaab absorptive capacity. It may equally be due to a deliberate decision by al-Shabaab to hide new capabilities until it has reason to use them.”
“The clearest near-term signal of capability transfer would be the appearance of Iranian-pattern explosive devices, antiaircraft missiles, or drones on Somali battlefields,” the researchers added. Specifically, they wrote, the use of Iranian-developed armor-piercing bombs “would act like a forensic fingerprint of Houthi or Iranian training.”
The Houthis have progressed from using off-the-shelf drone technology to manufacturing their own drones and other weapons from imported Iranian parts. They have used that technology to attack commercial ships transiting the Red Sea, Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden.
The Houthis’ relations with al-Shabaab rests on well-established weapons smuggling routes linking Somalia and Yemen. The TCF report traces al-Shabaab’s relationship with the Houthis to meetings in Yemen in March 2024 followed by Houthi visits to al-Shabaab territory in June and July.
In August 2024, authorities in Somalia’s Puntland region confiscated five kamikaze-style drones that were in transit from the Houthis to al-Shabaab. Those drones were based on commercial off-the-shelf technology, unlike the Houthis’ more recent drones built from imported parts. Al-Shabaab acquiring Houthi-built drones would be a significant escalation in al-Shabaab’s relationship with the Houthis as well as its capacity for harm, according to TCF researchers.
“Any documented shift in al-Shabaab’s drone use — a shift from the commercial off-the-shelf platforms it currently employs for basic reconnaissance toward purpose-built one-way attack drones of the kind the Houthis manufacture — would also indicate that the relationship has moved from training to active capability transfer,” they added.