Sana’a: Al Houthi rebels have demanded the newly appointed government to recruit thousands of their supporters into the army and security forces, a month after they tightened their grip on Sana’a and many other provinces in northern Yemen.

Al Houthi rebels have been in the centre of the political landscape in the troubled country since they gained control of key government buildings in the capital on September 21. They forced the government to resign and forced it to reverse the controversial lifting of fuel subsidies.

Ali Al Bikhiti, a spokesman for the group, recently said in an article published in the local press that Al Houthis should be treated like the Islamist Islah party whose followers were allegedly recruited in the thousands when they triumphed over the former president Ali Abdullah Saleh in 2011.

“I remember how tens of thousands of people loyal to the tribal, religious and military wings of the Muslim Brotherhood [Islah Party] were recruited after the formation of unity government.”

He added: “I know that the public budget cannot bear recruiting thousands of Ansar Allah [another name for the Al Houthis], but let’s be realistic. Ansar Allah cannot offer these sacrifices and go back home empty-handed leaving behind these institutions [that they controlled] to be run exclusively by their adversaries.”

Last month, the head of Yemen the National Security [Intelligence] Ali Al Ahmadi told a Kuwaiti newspapers that 20,000 Al Houthi fighters entered the capital in the early days of their uprising in August.

Those armed men substituted the army and security forces when they took over the capital on September 21. Now, the Al Houthis say that those militiamen, also referred as Popular Committees, have the right to join the army and police like other political players who employed their supporters during previous conflicts.

Critics say that employing Al Houthi fighters in the army would increase [factional] loyalties in the army.

“People are fighting to clear the armed forces from [factional] loyalists. Any recruitment in the armed forces should be based on unified procedures and Al Houthis should be assimilated in the army as Yemenis in the first place.”

Al Houthis’ demand comes as a local newspaper reported that thousands of soldiers who are enrolled in the payroll did not show up this month to receive salaries, suggesting that those soldiers might have been among thousands of fake names that plague the public payroll.

A senior army official told Al Sharae daily on October 16 that 25,367 soldiers in the dissolved first Armed Division, commanded by the army’s powerful general Ali Mohsen Al Ahmer, did not show up during salary submission process in the capital.

The official pointed out that a committee from the ministry of defence that oversaw the submission of salaries discovered that those soldiers did not exist and their commanders used to siphon off their salaries.

Yemen’s president ordered key measures in August to clear the public payroll from thousands of accumulated fake names. These measures included taking fingerprints of soldiers and requesting them to receive salaries in person through post offices.

The measures were in response to pressure by international donors who complained that the donations end up in the pockets of corrupt army officials.