A research report said the Houthis had trained between 120 and several hundred al-Shabaab fighters at camps in Yemen, primarily in weapons use, improvised explosive device production and drone operations, indicating deepening military cooperation between the two groups across the Gulf of Aden.
In a related development, the Financial Times said the Houthis had sold weapons to the Somali group and trained hundreds of its fighters to use drones and explosives.
A spokesman for the US military’s Africa Command, Africom, said: “The alliance between the Houthis and al-Shabaab gives the Yemeni group greater capacity to disrupt maritime corridors in the Red Sea and the western Indian Ocean,” linking the growing cooperation to the expanding potential risks to shipping routes stretching from Yemen’s coast to the Horn of Africa.
Century report raises estimates of trainee numbers
The estimates of the number of trainees came in a report issued by Century International titled “From the Periphery to the Centre: The Houthis in Africa”.
The report cited Yemeni and Somali security officials and others as saying that between 120 and several hundred al-Shabaab members had received training in Yemen in small arms, improvised explosive device production and basic drone operations. These estimates exceed the numbers publicly documented earlier by UN experts.
According to the UN panel, one of those groups left Somalia in October 2024 from a natural harbour between Barawe and Homboy in Lower Shabelle region, then sailed to the city of Mukalla in southern Yemen. The fighters were subsequently taken to an area outside Hudaydah, where they received about two months of training in rifles, anti-aircraft weapons and improvised explosive devices.
The Century International report said additional groups later travelled to Yemen for training. It based this on accounts from security officials and a regional source who spoke of three further batches, each comprising 33 fighters. This supports the institution’s assessment that the number of trainees exceeded the four groups mentioned in the UN’s earlier public documentation.
The report was prepared by Peter Salisbury, Nadwa al-Dawsari and Jay Bahadur as part of a two-year research project conducted by the institution under the title “Beyond the Axis”. The researchers said their wider work was based on about 100 interviews with military, security and intelligence officials, as well as documents, telephone records, intercept data, satellite imagery and ship-tracking information.
Somali intermediary coordinates training between the groups
Part of the evidence presented in the report centres on Ahmed Alami Samatar, a Somali national detained by security forces in Mukalla in 2024. The researchers described him as an al-Shabaab member who acted as an intermediary between the group and the Houthis. The institution said Samatar confessed while in detention to serving as a liaison between the two groups.
The researchers obtained interrogation records which they said showed Samatar travelling in June 2024 through areas controlled by al-Shabaab, including Jilib, while coordinating the movements of Yemeni “guests”. The report said these visitors included two Houthi military engineers who travelled to the Juba Valley to train group members in producing improvised explosive devices, modifying drones and maintaining weapons.
According to the interrogation records cited by the researchers, Samatar attended meetings that discussed “completing a weapons document” and “selecting men for training”. He also claimed to have facilitated the travel of up to 400 Somalis to Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen to receive military and ideological training.
The higher figure of 400 people does not mean that all those who travelled were al-Shabaab fighters. The Century International report distinguished this claim from its lower estimate, which put the number of group members who received training at between 120 and several hundred.
This account broadly accords with findings reported by the UN Panel of Experts on Yemen in October 2025. The panel said a Somali intermediary detained in Yemen had provided information, supported by material found in his possession, about Houthi military engineers travelling to Jilib to provide training in improvised explosive device production, drone modification and weapons maintenance.
The same individual told investigators that he had helped about 400 Somalis travel to Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen for military and ideological training. The panel concluded that cooperation between the Houthis and al-Shabaab had increased, describing the relationship as having “evolved” compared with its earlier stages.
Al-Shabaab’s need for drones drives cooperation
The Century International report linked the opening of communication channels between the two sides to al-Shabaab’s interest in developing capabilities that would reduce its exposure to air attacks. It said the group began contacting the Houthis in early 2024 in an effort to obtain anti-aircraft weapons and drones. The Houthis have extensive experience operating missiles and unmanned aircraft, and have shot down several US MQ-9 Reaper aircraft over Yemen.
At the same time, air power remains an important element of operations targeting al-Shabaab inside Somalia. Africom said it had carried out an air strike targeting the group near Jilib on 7 August, as part of a series of strikes against it during July and August.
A separate report by UN monitors said al-Shabaab was prioritising improvements to its weapons capabilities and spending about a quarter of its operational funds on buying weapons from the Houthis and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. The report also cited information about weapons exchanges and the provision of training between the group and the Houthis.
Warning over transfer of advanced military capabilities
As indications of training and cooperation increase, Century International warned that the evidence did not yet establish that the Houthis had transferred their most advanced military capabilities to al-Shabaab, including sophisticated drones or anti-aircraft missile systems.
The report stressed the importance of distinguishing between training fighters in basic drone operations or improvised explosive device production and supplying the group with weapons capable of challenging aircraft or carrying out long-range strikes. It concluded that the transfer of advanced capabilities had not been clearly established, but that previously documented training showed the relationship had gone beyond initial contacts and weapons trading.
In December, the UN Security Council reaffirmed the arms embargo on al-Shabaab and extended until 30 November 2026 the international authorisation to intercept vessels carrying weapons, military equipment or components used to manufacture improvised explosive devices to the group, as international interest grows in routes used to transfer fighters and weapons between Yemen and Somalia.
