Sunday September 7, 2025
Fighters from Yurtugh Tactical, a group of Uyghur jihadist veterans, take part in live-fire drills in Idlib, Syria. The unit operates as a private military contractor, training and advising other insurgent groups in the region.
Mogadishu (HOL) — Somalia is increasingly at risk from foreign-trained fighters acting as “jihadist private military contractors,” offering battlefield expertise and advanced weapons tactics to extremist groups, security analysts and officials warn.
Aries D. Russell of Aries Intelligence said these contractors, often veterans of wars in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, “provide tactical training, battlefield support, and operational consulting to extremist groups, sometimes for money, often for ideology.” He added that the spread of such operatives explains why Middle Eastern insurgent tactics are now visible in Somalia and across Africa.
The most urgent threat, according to Somali officials and UN monitors, is the partnership between Yemen’s Houthi movement and al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab. Supported by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hezbollah, the Houthis have supplied weapons traced to Iranian stockpiles and trained Somali fighters at ports under their control
President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has publicly blamed the Houthis for arming both al-Shabab and Islamic State militants in Somalia. Analysts at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace warned that these ties give Iran “strategic depth” while destabilizing East Africa, threatening Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Kenya.
Somali pirates have stepped up attacks in the Gulf of Aden, a trend that has coincided with Houthi assaults in the Red Sea. Analysts say the disruptions have created smuggling opportunities for weapons reaching al-Shabab, though it remains unclear whether the piracy surge reflects opportunism or direct coordination with the Houthis.
The impact of this cooperation has already been seen inside Somalia. In January, Islamic State militants in Puntland carried out two drone strikes against security forces, their first known use of the technology, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project. Al-Shabab is also believed to have received drones from Houthi stockpiles.
“The adoption of this technology by one terrorist group means the ideas will proliferate in the region and be picked up by others, even if there are no direct ties between those groups,” said Taimur Khan of Conflict Armament Research.
“The adoption of this technology by one terrorist group means the ideas will proliferate in the region and be picked up by others, even if there are no direct ties between those groups,” said Taimur Khan of Conflict Armament Research.
The rise of jihadist contractors can be traced to Malhama Tactical, a Syria-based group founded in 2016 by Uzbek veterans tied to al-Qaida affiliates. Russell described Malhama as “a freelance jihadist special operations unit” that set the model for other outfits by combining combat training with social media propaganda.
Since then, similar groups, including Muhojir Tactical, Albanian Tactical, and Yurtugh Tactical, have multiplied, posting training videos online that double as recruitment propaganda. Evidence shows fighters trained in Syria and Iraq are now rotating into conflicts in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa, embedding with militant groups as advisers.
Russell warned that this phenomenon has created “a marketization of militant talent” that complicates traditional counterterrorism strategies. Airstrikes and surveillance, he said, will not be enough.
For Somalia, the threat is no longer confined to its fight with al-Shabab. The country is increasingly tied into what Russell described as “a combat knowledge economy, where fighters trade in doctrine, not just ideology.” He warns that this network of militant trainers, weapons flows, and tactical expertise, stretching from Yemen to West Africa, risks hardening Somalia’s insurgency and embedding it within a broader global conflict for years to come.