That could spell the breakup of the Arab world's poorest state, the end of Saleh's beleaguered regime and open the door for the expansion of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, a prospect that appalls Saudi Arabia and the United States.

Last Saturday, the Sanaa government declared a state of emergency in Dhale, capital of the southern province of the same name, after an outbreak of protests. Scores of people were arrested after troops came under fire and shops were torched.

Separatists killed a police officer in Zanjibar in the neighboring province of Abyan, the fourth security official assassinated in a week.

Three days later, a socialist politician believed to have been active in the separatist movement, was gunned down in Zanjibar. He was apparently killed in retaliation for the death of the policeman, underlining the regime's growing alarm at the surge of separatist activity that followed a Feb. 20 call for a "non-violent intifada" by Tariq al-Fadhli, a prominent leader of the Southern Movement.

The Southern Movement is an umbrella organization that embraces several secessionist groups demanding a separate state in what was until 1990 the Marxist republic of South Yemen. The movement is largely non-violent but militant offshoots have been behind the recent violence.

South Yemen, a former British colony which covered the provinces east and south of Sanaa, was an independent state from 1967 until 1990, when it merged with the tribal-dominated, Muslim north under Saleh.

But the south remained socialist, resentful of the religious diktat from Sanaa. Southerners complained of systematic discrimination, land expropriations, meager state funding and a steady loss of jobs to northerners.

That triggered a four-month civil war in 1994. The south waged an ill-fated secessionist struggle that was largely crushed by Islamist irregulars, including many who had fought the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s alongside Osama bin Laden, whose family came from Yemen.

These fighters, mobilized by Saleh, saved the union and he has been ambivalent about their presence in Yemen since -- much to the dismay of Washington, which wants him to wipe out the jihadists.

The Southern Movement emerged in 2007, led by former military officers who said they had been treated badly since the civil war and supported by powerful tribal leaders.

There is no firm evidence that al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, the organization formed by the merging of Yemeni and Saudi jihadists in 2009, is actively involved in the southern unrest.

The ideological gap between them is great but they have a common enemy.

Fadhli, himself an Afghan veteran and former ally of Saleh, was involved with the jihadists in the past, like many other secessionists. But these days he vehemently denies having links to AQAP.

However, stirring up unrest in the south is to AQAP's advantage. It adds to the pressures on a government wilting under the weight of tribal unrest in the northern mountains, al-Qaida's trouble-making, the worsening southern violence and a collapsing economy.

The northern tribal insurgency has quieted down. A truce has held for a month but fighting could erupt at the drop of a hat.

Meantime, the economic crisis just keeps getting worse, with not only Yemen's sparse oil reserves running dry but its water sources as well.

Saleh, bailed out by large handouts from Saudi Arabia and propped up by U.S. military aid, is struggling to cope.

With the north calm, for the moment at least, he should be able to divert security forces to pursue al-Qaida and to smother the southern unrest. But the harder he cracks down, the more he will be playing into AQAP's hands by antagonizing the southerners.

"The real fear is that AQAP will indeed begin to collaborate with some of the prominent southern leaders to exacerbate an already escalating spiral of violence," U.S. global security consultancy Stratfor said.

"This would undoubtedly present an existential threat to Saleh equal or -- or worse than -- the simmering rebellion in the north."

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