Yemen’s Houthi rebels are sending weapons across the Red Sea and sharing technology and knowledge with armed groups in a way that could upend East Africa’s security landscape, a new report shows.
The 41-page August 2026 report, “From Spoke to Hub: The Houthis in Africa,” by the nonpartisan think tank Century International details the Houthis’ “multifaceted effort to expand their presence and influence along the African coast of the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea.”
“Since the early 2020s, alone and in concert with Iran, the Yemeni group has established itself as a key player in illicit trade in Yemen and its neighborhood; recruited migrants from African countries to serve as smugglers, spies, and soldiers; and built ties not just with al-Shabaab but also with Islamist factions within the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF),” the report states.
Interactions with Somalia’s al-Qaida affiliate present a dire threat should the terrorist group obtain advanced Houthi weaponry such as Iranian-style explosives, anti-aircraft missiles and drones. Even more dangerous would be evidence that al-Shabaab had “acquired the knowledge to modify, assemble or eventually manufacture drones locally,” Alex Jalil, a researcher with the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project (ACLED), told The Africa Report for an August 31 article.
The Houthis emerged in the 1990s under the name Ansar Allah, which means “Partisans of God.” They represent the Zaidis, Yemen’s Shia Muslim minority sect, and claim membership in Iran’s “axis of resistance.”
The group gained global notoriety by attacking commercial shipping in the Red Sea, a move experts agree is to galvanize domestic support in its chaotic home country. The attacks have wreaked havoc on global shipping and intensified recently as the rebels seized control of Yemen’s port of Mocha and strategic islands near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a vital maritime chokepoint.
The Century International report says the Houthis’ expansion strategy resembles that of Lebanon’s Hezbollah terrorist group, also an Iranian proxy. Hezbollah and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which answers to Iran’s supreme leader and supports militant groups across the Middle East and in Africa, “developed a playbook for building up armed-group capabilities,” the report states.
First, terrorists are taught how to wage guerrilla warfare. Then they are taught to use advanced Iranian arms to hit targets up to thousands of kilometers away. “Later, they taught Axis groups to build their own weapons from commercially sourced parts,” the report states.
“The evidence is clear: the Houthis with IRGC support have built a network of facilitators across the Red Sea into the Horn of Africa,” Amir Al Bidh, spokesman for Yemen’s Southern Transitional Council (STC), told The National, an Emirati-based news website. “The STC have presented evidence to both the US and UK on the Houthi operational relationship with Al Shabab.”
In Sudan, evidence shows that the Houthis have sent operatives to show the SAF how to use and make Iranian drones. In July 2025, the nation’s state-owned Military Industrial Corp. introduced the Safaroog drone, which resembles the Iranian Ababil-T medium-range one-way attack drone. The report indicates that the Sudanese and Iranian drones’ designs are nearly identical. The corporation has close ties to the SAF, which could “significantly alter the course of the civil war” there if it had drone-manufacturing capability, The National reported.
If the same drone manufacturing technology and capability were transferred to al-Shabaab, along with a supply of Iranian Saqr anti-aircraft missiles, the security implications for Somalia would be catastrophic.
Al-Shabaab and Houthi officials met throughout 2024 in Yemen and Somalia. Among the discussions: al-Shabaab’s procurement of explosive drones. Ahmed Elmi Samatar, an al-Shabaab operative captured in Mukalla, Yemen, in 2024, confessed to being a liaison between the two groups.
The Century International report said Samatar “appears to have been coordinating the movement of a group of ‘guests,’ who provided al-Shabaab members with training in improvised explosive device (IED) manufacturing, drone modification, and weapons maintenance.” He also claimed to have set up travel for up to 400 Somalis to “Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen for military and ideological training.”
In exchange for weapons and training, the Houthis reportedly want to recruit fighters in Somalia and establish a presence in the country, including setting up communications and surveillance equipment to extend its regional missile and drone capabilities.
“At this stage, the evidence seems stronger for training, knowledge transfer and a developing relationship,” ACLED’s Jalil told The Africa Report. “But even if the relationship remains transactional, I think it tells us something important about where Red Sea geopolitics is heading.”
Jalil continued: “Transferring knowledge is ultimately much harder to reverse than transferring individual weapons.”