Istanbul/Sanaa  - While the world's stage is occupied by violence in Iraq and the latest developments in the Israeli-Arab conflict, another drama of epic proportions is progressing almost unnoticed elsewhere in the region.

Experts warned months ago that Yemen was in danger of collapsing, that it could become a haven for extremists, like Afghanistan before it.

The only thing that has happened so far are a few isolated humanitarian gestures and an increase in the amount of development aid the country receives from the US.

But in north-west Yemen, where the government on August 11 declared its sixth military offensive against the Shiite Muslim rebels led by Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, people are dying every day.

Thousands of civilians have been trapped on the front lines. Many of those who have fled from the fighting are cut off from humanitarian aid. Reporters have not been allowed to enter the area since 2004, when the fighting first began.

In the meantime, calls are multiplying in the former socialist south, which was united with northern Yemen in 1990, to split the country in two again.

Southern Yemenis feel discriminated against by the government in Sanaa, which was formerly the capital of North Yemen. They think they get less state services than the rest of the country.

Meanwhile, allies of the Sunni international terorist group al- Qaeda have established themselves in several provinces where the government has lost control.

The poor house of the Arabic world has also become a sanctuary for terrorists from neighbouring Saudi Arabia.

"If problems in Yemen aren't addressed, they could destabilize Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States," the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has warned.

President Ali Abdullah Saleh is trying to win back control from the Shiite rebels, at least in the north-west of the country, with the latest military offensive.

He is receiving support from Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia, which fears the influence of the rebels on its own Shiite minority, which lives close to the border with Yemen.

The government of Shiite Iran, on the other hand, sympathizes with Houthi's rebels, who once advertised themselves with the slogan, "Death to America, Death to Israel."

"With every day that passes, we come closer to believing that the war in (the province of) Saada is a Saudi-Iranian war, not a Yemeni one," wrote the editor of weekly newspaper Yemen Post in an editorial in August.

The rebels have already offered a ceasefire, but the government refuses to call off its offensive until the Houthis give up their weapons. Since the rebels reject any such proposal, there is no near end in sight to the conflict raging in the provinces of Saada and Amran.

"The only goal of (the government's offensive) is to kill people and drive them away from their homes," wrote rebel leader al-Houthi in a letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon.

Meanwhile, his brother, Yahya al-Houthi, who lives in Germany, published a statement denouncing the US' recent promise to provide 121 million dollars worth of aid for Yemen.

"The US calls this money development aid, but it is used to buy weapons and pay tribes to kill their fellow Yemenis," he said on the rebels' website.

The government is trying to sell its war against the rebels as part of its "war on terror." But the search for the German family kidnapped in Saada in June has been hindered by the fighting.

The battle against Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden has also fallen by the wayside and there are not enough security forces, most of which are tied up in the north-west, to fight al-Qaeda.

Experts fear that without international measures Yemen could become a lawless area where terrorist training camps could be built and attacks on international targets could be planned. (dpa)