Stretching between the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden basin stands as one of the world’s most critical maritime trade arteries, carrying nearly 30% of all global container traffic between Asia and Europe via the Suez Canal. What was once already a region roiled by decades of conflict is now facing a new and alarming threat: two ideologically opposed militant organizations are quietly forging opportunistic cooperative ties, sharing military expertise and equipment that risk expanding instability far beyond their existing borders.
According to United Nations expert panels and U.S. intelligence assessments, Yemen’s Houthi insurgency (officially the Ansar Allah movement, which controls large swathes of northern Yemen and maintains the capacity to disrupt Red Sea shipping) and Somalia’s Al-Shabaab—widely recognized as al-Qaeda’s most powerful active affiliate—have been exchanging logistical and military support, despite the absence of a formal binding alliance. The two groups hold starkly opposing ideological views: the Houthis adhere to Zaydi Shiism, while Al-Shabaab follows a hardline anti-Shia Sunni extremist doctrine. Yet shared strategic and material interests have overcome these divides, marking a worrying new shift in regional security dynamics.
First reports of emerging cooperation between the two groups surfaced in 2024, when the UN Panel of Experts on Yemen issued an official warning over growing arms trafficking across the shared waters between Somalia and Yemen—two nations that have been mired in continuous conflict since 1991 and 2014 respectively. The panel later expanded its warning to note deepening logistical and operational coordination between the militant organizations.
Accounts suggest Houthi leaders have made direct trips to Somalia to establish working relationships with Al-Shabaab commanders, while cross-border criminal smuggling networks long active in the region have also acted as intermediaries to facilitate these connections. Illicit trafficking of weapons, goods and people has flourished along the ungoverned coasts of the Horn of Africa and Yemen for decades, providing a ready infrastructure for underground cooperation.
For both groups, the partnership serves clear strategic goals. The Houthis aim to expand their regional influence and diversify their revenue streams, while Al-Shabaab seeks to bolster its outdated military arsenal with more advanced capabilities. Per UN documentation, Al-Shabaab militants have already received training in Houthi-controlled Yemeni territory on drone operation and the manufacturing of advanced improvised explosive devices. The Houthis have also reportedly supplied Al-Shabaab with armed drones—weapons the Houthis have used extensively to target commercial and military shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden between 2023 and 2025—and Al-Shabaab has additionally requested guided missiles from its Yemeni partners.
Up to this point, Al-Shabaab has only used drones for surveillance and intelligence gathering. The acquisition of armed offensive drones would transform the group’s operational capacity, allowing it to carry out deadlier attacks against the already overstretched Somali national army and its international backers, both within Somalia and across regional borders. The United Nations has warned this expansion could allow Al-Shabaab to extend its reach far beyond Somali territory, further destabilizing the already fragile Horn of Africa region.
Al-Shabaab’s growing power comes after nearly two decades of gradual expansion across Somalia. Emerging in the mid-2000s, the group has carved out control over large areas of central and southern Somalia, outlasting multiple international counterinsurgency campaigns. Its resilience is rooted in longstanding political, military and economic failures of the Western-backed Somali federal government, which has failed to unify fragmented regional forces and consolidate authority across the country. Al-Shabaab has successfully exploited violent rivalries between the federal army and regional militias seeking greater autonomy, expanding its influence as political divisions deepen in Mogadishu.
International forces have also struggled to contain the group. African Union troops deployed to support the Somali government have faced persistent setbacks, and U.S. counterterrorism airstrikes—hit a record high in 2025—have done little to roll back Al-Shabaab’s territorial control, even as they weakened the smaller Islamic State affiliate in northern Somalia (which is also suspected of maintaining informal links to the Houthis).
Currently, Somali security forces, backed by U.S. support, are preparing a new major offensive, codenamed Operation Onkod (Thunder), targeting Al-Shabaab in coastal areas west of the autonomous northern Puntland region, following a successful earlier campaign against the local Islamic State faction. Al-Shabaab has already begun reinforcing its positions in the area in anticipation of the assault.
The growing cooperation between the Houthis and Al-Shabaab carries severe risks for global trade and regional security. While current cooperative activity remains limited, it could eventually push increased instability into the Gulf of Aden, already roiled by Houthi attacks on commercial shipping carried out in support of Palestinians since 2023. Those previous attacks already diverted international naval resources and contributed to a resurgence of pirate activity off the Somali coast, which has only partially abated. A stronger Al-Shabaab controlling northern Somali coastal territory, paired with ongoing Houthi aggression, could create a sustained arc of instability across the entire Red Sea corridor.
Against the backdrop of open regional tensions between Iran, the United States and Israel that began in February 2024, the Houthis have already amplified destabilizing activity across the waterway. With the global economy already vulnerable to supply chain disruptions through strategic chokepoints like the nearby Strait of Hormuz, any further escalation in the Red Sea could have far-reaching economic consequences for markets worldwide.
This analysis is based on research by Brendon Novel, a doctoral candidate in political science at the University of Montreal specializing in Horn of Africa and Red Sea security dynamics.