Africa Defense Forum
Somalia’s al-Shabaab terrorists and Yemen’s Houthi militants have long been known to cooperate across the Red Sea, capitalizing on entrenched networks that enable all kinds of illicit commerce back and forth from East Africa to the Arabian Peninsula.
Now, however, evidence indicates that links forged more than a decade ago might be taking on a more tangible, and dangerous, character.
“The cooperation is now advancing beyond fundamental logistical and intelligence coordination into political, media and direct military collaboration,” according to a 39-page February 2026 report by Somalia’s Mogadishu-based Saldhig Institute research organization.
“We were aware that the relationship was very much on basic lines, where they were just cooperating on a kind of needs-based cooperation, but not in a connection that we can call a proper relation,” report author Hussein Sheikh-Ali told The Africa Report magazine for a February 17 report. “It was mainly the weapons trafficking.”
“In this particular relationship that we’re now addressing in this paper, it is a bit more alarming, it is more systematic, more strategic and it has every sign that it should be a huge concern for anyone concerned about regional security,” the former Somali national security advisor said.
Al-Shabaab is the more notorious and well-known of the two groups. It gained prominence in 2006 and eventually aligned itself with al-Qaida. The Houthis’ roots are planted in the 1990s, when they emerged under the name Ansar Allah, which means “Partisans of God.” Their more common name is taken from their late founder. They represent the Zaidis, a sect of Yemen’s Shia Muslim minority. Al-Shabaab is a Sunni Muslim group.
Observers have been tracking cooperation between the two groups for several years. The alliance “began as an exchange of information and maritime facilitation and subsequently evolved into logistical and technological collaboration,” the report states.
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