"Al-Houthi and Al-Shabaab Movement"... American website: The fall of Assad pushes Iran to desperately search for a new agent to implement its agendas

The American website, The Hill , considered that the fall of Assad, which represents a great loss for Tehran, may push Iran to search desperately for a new agent, in light of what it described as Iran’s lack of an army capable of deploying force.

The website published an article by Colonel (retired) Jonathan Sweet, an intelligence officer in the US Army, and Mark Tutt, a specialist in national security and foreign policy, in which they confirmed that Iran relies on its agents, drones, and ballistic missiles, pointing to a possible role for the Houthis in Yemen, despite the complexities of the situation.

He noted that Iran is in dire need of a new proxy—one that will give it some leverage to threaten American interests in the region. And it may have found that proxy in al-Shabaab, the “terrorist” group based in Somalia.

As an official branch of al-Qaeda, al-Shabaab adheres to al-Qaeda's "global anti-Western jihadist narrative and its promotion of sectarian violence in the Horn of Africa region against those who do not agree with its extremist religious interpretation."

The article, translated by Yemen Youth Net, suggested that what it described as the “connective tissue”—the remaining pivotal link—would be the Houthis in Yemen, but the situation is complicated nonetheless. The Houthis are Zaidi Shiites, while al-Shabaab is a Sunni Islamist terrorist group that traditionally opposes the Shiites ideologically. But they have a common enemy—the United States and Israel—which can lead to strange alliances.

The article continued, "The weapons provided to Al-Shabaab pose a threat to the Somali government, US forces, and commercial shipping passing through the Bab al-Mandab Strait and the Gulf of Aden from the shores of East Africa."

In June, U.S. intelligence learned of discussions among the Houthis to supply weapons to al-Shabaab, which U.S. officials described as a troubling development that threatens to further destabilize the Horn of Africa. The Houthi rebels are believed to have struck an arms deal with al-Shabaab, likely with Iranian approval.

For al-Shabaab, this would give it access to a new source of weapons — including drones and possibly ballistic missiles — that are far more sophisticated than its current arsenal.

The article said that this matter relates to Somali Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre, who met with high-ranking Iranian officials while in Baghdad in July in an attempt to persuade the Houthis, through their Iranian backers, not to support the Al-Shabaab movement at the expense of the Somali government.

The Somali government faces a similar threat, the authors say, as do the 480 US troops stationed there and the 4,000 troops of the Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa headquarters in neighbouring Djibouti.

The article concluded by saying that Al-Shabaab will be a dangerous and capable proxy for Iran in the Horn of Africa region, noting that in addition to confronting Khamenei’s nuclear weapons program, the incoming Trump administration must maintain maximum pressure and situational awareness against Tehran’s plots in the Horn of Africa.