By Faisal Abu Bakr | 2025-02-09

ADEN -- The Iran-backed Houthis have been funding their attacks through drug trafficking and cannabis cultivation, expanding their operations into Africa to widen their revenues, experts and analysts in Yemen said.

Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen have become open markets for drugs such as Captagon, hashish and heroin, per the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The Houthis use profits from the sale of illicit drugs to buy weapons and pay fighters' salaries, in the same way that other Iranian proxies and allies, notably Lebanese Hizbullah and the former Syrian regime, relied on the drug trade.

Across the water in the Horn of Africa, the Houthis have established ties with al-Qaeda affiliate al-Shabaab based on mutual interests, despite their ideological differences, economist Abdul Aziz Thabet told Al-Fassel.

This "opens the door for the Houthis to generate new revenues from the drug trade carried out by al-Shabaab," he said, noting that the trade is one of the main sources of revenue for both groups.

The drug trade finances the Houthis’ recruitment operations, Thabet noted.

"The Houthis are cultivating hashish and cannabis in Saada and al-Jawf provinces under the supervision of experts from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)" to boost their revenue stream, he said.

Saada is closed to everyone except the Houthis, he said, and "no one other than local residents can enter it without prior permission."

"This raises some questions about whether the group is pursuing the establishment of Captagon factories, as happened in Syria."

Smuggling gangs

"The Houthis began drug trafficking early on, and are working to spread drug use among the youth," said Fahmi al-Zubairi, director general of the human rights office in Sanaa.

This includes their own fighters, he said, with the Houthis facilitating access to drugs such as Captagon, a stimulant, to give fighters energy and lower their inhibitions when they are on the battlefront, as was the case in Syria.

The Houthis use these banned substances with their young recruits, he said, making them vulnerable to coercion and exposing them to addiction.

To raise money, the Houthis collect taxes under various guises, economist Fares al-Najjar told Al-Fassel.

The group has formed smuggling gangs as part of the parallel economy they have established in Yemen, he said. These gangs have connections with smugglers in the Horn of Africa, and use them to obtain drugs and weapons.

Recent interdictions of drug smugglers in the Arabian Sea "prove that this network has become international in scope," al-Najjar said.

They also confirm that "the Houthis are now interfering in the region's security and stability, as do all parties linked to Iran in the region."