Al-Shabaab-Houthi alliance poses a new threat to the U.S. and its allies
MOGADISHU (Somaliguardian) – On a balmy evening, Jibril “One-Armed” Yahya Ali and his new bride set out for a honeymoon drive along the beach outside al-Ghaydah, Yemen. Jibril, a Somali, and his Yemeni wife had met through a mutual acquaintance, an arms dealer who helped Jibril buy military-grade weapons from Yemen’s Houthi rebels. Jibril would then […]
Black News 
MOGADISHU (Somaliguardian) – On a balmy evening, Jibril “One-Armed” Yahya Ali and his new bride set out for a honeymoon drive along the beach outside al-Ghaydah, Yemen.
Jibril, a Somali, and his Yemeni wife had met through a mutual acquaintance, an arms dealer who helped Jibril buy military-grade weapons from Yemen’s Houthi rebels. Jibril would then smuggle the arms to al-Shabaab, an Islamist insurgent group fighting to overthrow the government in Somalia.
The budding alliance benefited both sides. Al-Shabaab, the world’s richest al Qaeda wing, had cash but needed weapons and training. The Houthis had sophisticated arms and tech know-how, but coveted money and a new perch for attacks against the West.
The exchange also made Jibril a target.
On Feb. 12, four months after Jibril married Budoor Murshid, the couple took the Toyota Corolla on their sunset drive. Budoor’s phone rang. They parked, and Budoor stepped outside to take the call.
Moments later, a U.S. missile slammed through the car roof. Rather than explode, it sliced up the Corolla like a weaponized can opener.
Jibril died instantly. A friend spirited Budoor away.
The airstrike was an opening shot in the American effort to disrupt the unlikely alliance between two implacable U.S. foes: al-Shabaab militants who have been fighting in Somalia for two decades, and the Houthi rebels, longtime beneficiaries of weapons and training from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
For the U.S., Jibril’s death came too late to stop the chain of events he helped set in motion.
The Houthis and al-Shabaab had been sectarian adversaries until Jibril and others brokered a partnership that now threatens to further destabilize the Middle East and energy markets worldwide. Their home countries, Yemen and Somalia, sit on opposite shores of the Gulf of Aden, through which 12% of the world’s seaborne oil passed before the Iran war.
With the Strait of Hormuz all but closed by Iranian forces, the gulf could serve as an escape route for Middle East oil. Except the Houthis have come to the aid of their allies in Tehran, attacking Saudi-linked oil tankers with missiles and drones in the Red Sea.
Since at least 2023, Jibril had served as a liaison between the two militant groups, united in their hatred of America and Israel, according to U.S., Somali and Yemeni officials.
Jibril was killed two weeks before the U.S. began the war with Iran. He never saw his legacy—how two U.S.-designated terrorist groups, locked in a marriage of convenience, inherited a strategic maritime pinch-point that empowers them to threaten the global oil trade in a time of crisis.
“You have al-Shabaab, al Qaeda’s largest and most lucrative affiliate, gaining access to more sophisticated weapons and training,” U.S. Gen. Dagvin Anderson, commander of American forces in Africa, told The Wall Street Journal.
“On the other side, the Houthis are extending their geographic reach, gaining a foothold that could further destabilize one of the world’s most critical economic chokepoints,” he said. “This isn’t just a regional problem. It has global implications.”
Two American sources familiar with the operation confirmed it was a U.S. airstrike that killed Jibril. U.S. Central Command, in charge of American forces in the Middle East, said it wasn’t a military operation. A Central Intelligence Agency spokesperson declined to say whether the spy service was behind the killing.
Yemen’s ambassador to the U.S. declined an interview request. Houthi officials didn’t respond to written questions about the group’s relationship with al-Shabaab. Budoor couldn’t be reached for comment.
Enemy of my enemy
The Houthis, predominantly Shia Muslims, and al-Shabaab, which adheres to Sunni Islam, are among the hundreds of millions divided by a seventh-century schism over who was the rightful successor to the Prophet Muhammad. The sectarian split still flares into violence in spots from Afghanistan to Iraq to Syria.
Common enemies, however, now unite the Houthis and al-Shabaab. “They hate the West, they hate Israel,” said Abdulaahi Mohamed Ali, a former Somali intelligence chief.
Yemen’s Counter-Terrorism Service described Jibril as “one of the key figures in strengthening ties between the Houthis and al-Shabaab through the exchange of expertise and coordination, particularly in facilitating the transfer of weapons and military equipment,” according to an internal assessment reviewed by the Journal.
Jibril moved clandestinely between Somalia and Yemen, operating as al-Shabaab’s liaison with Houthi command, according to Matt Bryden, a former United Nations official who monitored arms flows to Somalia. Bryden outlined Jibril’s life and death in a closed-door intelligence briefing in June attended by U.S. special-operations personnel and East African government officials.
Jibril, 38 years old when he died, had studied veterinary medicine in Yemen and ran a charity in Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital. He owned a foreign-exchange outlet and an import-export firm. He bore scars from gunshot wounds. His injuries earned him the nickname Gacaamey—roughly translated as one-armed—despite his having both limbs.
The Houthis provided Jibril with a furnished apartment in San’a, the rebel-controlled Yemeni capital, according to the briefing, and he attended official functions. The rebels issued him a phony but convincing Yemeni passport under an assumed name, according to a document viewed by the Journal.
In 2024, al-Shabaab dispatched a more senior envoy, Sheikh Ahmed Elmi Samatar, to work alongside Jibril. Samatar presented the Houthis with a lengthy weapons wish list, viewed by the Journal, which included shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles, 107 mm Katyusha rockets, Dragunov sniper rifles, explosive attack drones, antitank missiles and U.S. night-vision gear.
A U.S. military intelligence official confirmed that al-Shabaab sought advanced weaponry from the Houthis, in addition to rifles, machine guns and ammunition.
Yemeni government officials arrested Samatar in January 2025 and later released him in a prisoner exchange with the Houthis, according to the briefing. Samatar returned to Somalia, leaving Jibril to press al-Shabaab’s interests in Yemen.
Jibril continued to broker arms shipments, and al-Shabaab dispatched two weapons experts to Yemen to assist him. After Jibril’s killing, al-Shabaab picked a replacement in Yemen to continue the work, Bryden said. Jibril’s wife is on the run, he said.
