Across the broader Mediterranean, particularly along the Red Sea and the North Africa–Horn corridors, armed groups are increasingly cooperating across borders. These linkages, fuelled primarily by smuggling networks, allow groups to transfer arms, military equipment and know-how. This has resulted in more capable and more resilient networks operating across land and maritime corridors that are vital to Gulf-European trade and energy flows, and for security.
This dynamic is visible in growing ties between Yemen’s Houthis and al-Shabaab, the Al-Qaeda affiliate in Somalia, as well as with Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Similarly, in North Africa and the Horn, Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan Arab Armed Forces (LAAF) and Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by General Mohammed Dagalo (also known as Hemedti), are cultivating closer connections.
For both European and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, these developments pose shared security risks, which are further compounded by the involvement of external state actors – most notably Russia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) – whose support for, or tolerance of, some armed groups, complicates efforts to contain these networks. While armed group cooperation has deepened, it has also created openings – notably around smuggling and maritime security – where coordinated European–GCC action could still be effective.
From old linkages to deeper cooperation
Cross-border cooperation between fighters and armed groups in the Mediterranean is not new. Historically, Yemen’s porous coastline has served as a crossroads for weapons, drug smuggling and human trafficking. Iranian arms and fuel bound for the Houthis have often entered Yemen through the Horn of Africa.
Similarly, the tri-border area linking Libya, Sudan and Chad has long functioned as a transit hub for weapons, fighters and migrants. Libya’s former ruler Muammar Gaddafi enrolled mercenaries from the Sahel and Sudan to fight internal opponents, while Khalifa Haftar’s LAAF has since recruited from similar networks in its campaigns against the internationally recognized government in Tripoli.
However, these historical dynamics are now taking on a more structured and politically significant form, with arms smuggling as a key enabler. Armed groups are forging cooperative arrangements driven by the transfer of military expertise and shared logistical interests. These networks are distinct from parallel organized crime structures and often transcend sectarian divides, operating in a regional context marked by multiple crises and conflicts.
The Red Sea region: Houthis, al-Shabaab and AQAP
Cooperation between the Houthis and al-Shabaab intensified in 2025, and now involves weapons smuggling and technical training, including operational tactics and logistical support, according to UN experts. Al-Shabaab reportedly requested advanced weapons and training from the Houthis, offering in return to increase piracy activities in the Gulf of Aden to generate ransom revenue from captured vessels.
At the same time, AQAP has exchanged weapons and fighters with al-Shabaab, with Somali operatives travelling to Yemen to acquire operational expertise, including in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology from the Houthis. Since 2024, the Houthi–AQAP relationship has evolved into what UN reporting describes as an “opportunistic alliance”, marked by increasingly coordinated operations – primarily against the Yemeni government and allied forces.
As part of this cooperation, the Houthis reportedly agreed to transfer UAVs, thermal rockets and explosive devices to AQAP, and also provided training. In parallel, AQAP halted hostilities with the Houthis and engaged in prisoner exchanges, while considering potential support for Houthi maritime attacks in 2024, before these attacks subsided in 2025.
According to the UN, the Houthis are the principal suppliers and organizers of smuggling activities involving both al-Shabaab and AQAP. Iran’s role remains vital, however, as many of the weapons smuggled across the Red Sea are of Iranian origin. Somalia is increasingly used as a transit hub for Iranian arms destined for the Houthis, with multiple smuggling routes running from Somali territory to Yemeni ports.
The North Africa–Horn corridor: LAAF and RSF
In June 2025, Sudan’s RSF seized the tri-border area linking Sudan, Libya and Egypt – a key trafficking route, particularly for gold, fuel and people. The area has long been contested among regional strongmen due to its strategic and economic value.
The Sudanese government accused a Libyan armed group affiliated with the LAAF – the Subul al Salam battalion – of supporting the RSF’s offensive by sending reinforcements from Libya’s Kufra region. The LAAF has denied involvement. However, Haftar’s forces had already been linked in 2023 to active support for the RSF, including the provision of military supplies via Russia’s Wagner Group. More recent reporting suggests that the LAAF may provide training camps to the RSF in the Kufra area, supply the group with fuel, and protect the passage of military resources allegedly delivered by the UAE via eastern Libya. A 2025 UN internal report further suggested that the RSF received military supplies from the UAE via Chad, pointing to a “consistent pattern” of cargo flights that implied the creation of a regional air bridge. The UAE has denied these allegations, stating that the flights had a humanitarian purpose, as it did when a 2024 UN report characterized similar allegations as “credible”.
These claims add to UN findings that the UAE violated the arms embargo on Libya in support of the LAAF, allegations that have been made repeatedly and that the UAE has previously denied. Regarding LAAF and RSF’s cooperation, evidence suggests this has deepened. Since 2025, the RSF has expanded logistical supply lines through territories in Chad and Libya and introduced the use of drones for combat and reconnaissance, especially during fighting in El-Fasher. Furthermore, the LAAF’s current role in the reconstruction of Libya’s Fezzan region has enabled Haftar’s sons to consolidate new alliances in the south, strengthening links between armed groups and illicit economic networks spanning the Horn and the Sahel. Russia’s Africa Corps (formerly the Wagner Group) – which has reportedly increased cooperation with the LAAF since Yevgeny Prigozhin’s death – is also believed to work in partnership with the RSF on gold smuggling – adding another layer of complexity to the region’s multiple nodes of supply, trafficking and armed cooperation.
Smuggling as a point of cooperation – but with different trade-offs
Across both the Red Sea and the North Africa–Horn, collaboration consolidates and expands illicit networks. Armed groups seek to upgrade capabilities and entrench territorial control by strengthening alliances; however, their strategic priorities differ.
In the Red Sea region, cooperation centres primarily on the transfer of military knowledge. AQAP’s first recorded use of UAVs against Yemeni government forces in mid-2023, for example, coincided with the deepening of its cooperation with Houthis.
In North Africa and in the Horn, control of smuggling networks is the focus of armed group cooperation. Dominance over corridors linking southern Libya, Chad and western Sudan is critical for weapons flows, war financing and logistical depth.
Therefore, smuggling is key to partnerships growth. In this framework, different priorities behind armed groups’ cooperation across regions help explain why counter-smuggling offers, in both theatres, a viable opening for policy, requiring however tailored approaches.
Implications for European and GCC policy
The EU–GCC Regional Security Dialogue, launched in 2024, offers a useful platform for identifying practical, joint approaches to counterterrorism, maritime security and hybrid threats. Cooperation is likely to be more straightforward in the Red Sea, where European and GCC states converge in their assessment of Iran as the main destabilizing actor. However, collaboration in the North Africa–Horn corridor is constrained by divergent views on Russia’s role and growing tensions surrounding Emirati involvement, particularly from Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
In the Red Sea, European and GCC states could coordinate more closely within the Combined Maritime Forces’ task forces focused on weapons smuggling (CTF 150), Red Sea security (CTF 153), and maritime security training (CTF 154). This would support the sharing of best practices, promote interoperability, and help identify defence-capacity needs among partner states along the Red Sea coast.
Joint support for rebuilding the Yemeni Coast Guard (YCG) would further strengthen counter-smuggling efforts, helping to reduce the flow of weapons and components that enable maritime attacks. The Yemen Maritime Security Partnership, co-organized by Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom, provides a useful framework for such cooperation. A similar approach could be explored for Somalia. Since Somali Coast Guard and naval operations remain concentrated around Mogadishu, European and GCC partners could focus on supporting the Somaliland Coast Guard and the Puntland Maritime Police Force, in coordination with Somalia’s federal government, to better tackle the smuggling of weapons bound for the Houthis. However, political tensions – particularly those linked to Israel’s recognition of Somaliland – risk limiting progress.
In the North Africa–Horn corridor, efforts to strengthen border security have proven far more challenging. Initiatives such as the EU Border Assistance Mission in Libya (EUBAM) have struggled to gain traction amid the dominance of armed groups. Egypt’s role in border control remains decisive, and could be more effective. An EU–GCC Fund for Border Security could support Egyptian efforts through funding, technology transfer and training, alongside the creation of a multinational task force bringing together civilian and military border-security specialists. As smuggling remains the central driver of armed group cooperation, sustained multilateral counter-smuggling efforts offer an entry point for disrupting these networks.
