The Wall Street Journal reported that Yemen’s Houthis and Somalia’s Al-Shabaab have been engaged in a secret and increasingly close cooperation since 2023, which reportedly includes arms, training and coordination of operations.
The newspaper said that Al-Shabaab has received advanced weapons and training in drones and explosives from the Houthis.
Meanwhile, the Houthis are said to have sought technical support to install radars to monitor ship movements in the waters between Yemen and Somalia.
According to the newspaper, a senior Al-Shabaab leader, Jibril Yahya Ali, played a key role in building the relationship between the two sides. Jibril was killed in a US airstrike in February this year, and the newspaper said that he secretly traveled between Somalia and Yemen, and received benefits such as a house and a fake Yemeni passport.
The Wall Street Journal also reported that Al-Shabaab sent a proxy named Ahmed Elmi Samatar to the Houthis in 2024, who reportedly provided a list of weapons and military equipment. The list included anti-aircraft missiles, Katyusha rockets, long-range rifles, attack drones and night-vision equipment.
The newspaper said that smuggling networks are using shell companies and ports in Yemen to transport weapons from the Gulf of Aden to coastal areas in northern Somalia, before being transferred to Al-Shabaab units in the south of the country.
US officials, according to the newspaper, believe that this cooperation could give both sides more power to expand their influence in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. They also warned that the situation could threaten the security of shipping and the flow of energy to global markets.
