Houthis increase smuggling networks in African conflicts

Houthi ties with Al Shabab in Somalia and the Sudanese Armed Forces led to arms-smuggling networks, expanding the Yemeni rebels’ influence in the Horn of Africa, a report has found.

The report found the Iran-backed militia’s presence in the region builds on the Islamic Republican Guard Corps (IRGC) network that arms and trains regional groups.

Al Shabab and the SAF are among a number of allied factions across the Red Sea, the report by the Century Foundation said.

There are concerns that these new networks will allow the Houthis, who took control of northern Yemen by force more than a decade ago, to entrench themselves in the Horn of Africa.

“The Houthis … have things that these groups want – arms, technology, know-how, supply chains and access to Iran,” said the report, titled From Spoke to Hub: The Houthis in Africa.

“The relationships are transactional, for now. But … such seemingly transactional relationships can harden into interdependence over time.”

The group last month resumed its attacks on international shipping in the Bab Al Mandeb strait in a blockade of Saudi Arabia’s ports, ending a year-long ceasefire in the Red Sea. A Saudi oil tanker was attacked and set alight at the port of Yanbu on Monday.

Al Shabab, a Somali group with ties to Al Qaeda, opened communications with the Houthis in 2024 for help in buying anti-aircraft weapons and drones that would deter airborne attacks from the US, the report said.

There are no signs yet that Al Shabab has obtained and used these advanced weapons, it said. Yet two discoveries of Al Shabab operatives in Yemen suggest the relationship is deepening.

The first was the arrest of Al Shabab operative Ahmed Elmi Samatar in Yemen’s Mukalla. He confessed that he had organised training camps for Al Shabab militants with Houthi combatants.

In February, a Somali national named Abdishakur Yahye Ali (nicknamed “the Joker”) was killed in an apparent US drone strike in Al Ghaydah, eastern Yemen. In his hotel room, security forces found a Yemeni passport issued in 2023 by the Houthis’ de facto authorities in Sanaa.

In Sudan, the Houthis are believed to have been taking shipments of small arms and light weapons on Iran’s behalf since 2024. Houthi operatives are present in Port Sudan with arms traffic moving both ways across the Red Sea, according to the report.

At the heart of it is the relationship that Iran once had with deposed Sudanese military dictator Omar Al Bashir and the army. Those ties were severed in 2016 after an attack on the Saudi embassy in Tehran, when Al Bashir sided with Riyadh. But the SAF restored its ties with Tehran in 2023 after the onset of the Sudanese civil war.

There are concerns that as well as smuggling weapons, the Houthis have been training Sudanese army forces alongside the IRGC.

“Multiple sources claim that the Houthis have sent veteran engineers and operatives to train Sudanese forces in the use and manufacturing of Iranian UAV [drone] systems alongside the IRGC,” the report said.

Last year, the Sudanese state-owned arms maker developed its own UAV, the Safaroog. The report highlights that it closely resembles the Iranian Ababil-T, the medium-range, one-way attack drone the Houthis have also produced under the name Qasef-2k.

The group is also believed to be, with Iranian support, re-establishing ties with Eritrea, where it serves as a smuggling centre for Iranian arms en route to Yemen.

“If these claims are correct, it would mean that the Houthis have built a logistical footprint that runs, intermittently, along the African shores of the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea from north-eastern Somalia to northern Sudan,” the report said.