SAUDI CAUTION
Many of the mediators involved in the talks say, however, that Saudi Arabia, Saleh's main supporter and financier, continues to prefer mild diplomacy to persuade him to leave and has not yet piled on all the pressure it has at its disposal.
Some Yemeni politicians allege that Saudi policy is affected by divisions in Riyadh over which Yemeni faction to favour.
Different branches of the Saudi royal family, diplomats and politicians say, are financing the three main players in the conflict -- the Ahmars, Saleh and General Mohsen, who has stayed on the sidelines of the fighting between Saleh and the Ahmars.
For many Yemenis, all three factions, which have tribal and other links with each other, are largely driven by corrupt self-interest rather than the wellbeing of the nation at large.
"Until the Saudis make up their mind the rest of us will continue to engage," the Western diplomat said. "The Saudis don't want to see chaos or upheaval. They want to see stability preserved in Yemen and they will make a decision based on that."
But while Saleh reaches into a familiar tool box to divide and rule through patronage and intimidation, mediators say international pressure on Saleh will have to be ratcheted up to prevent this failing state from imploding.
"We say it is not in his interest to choose violence and point to Libya and Syria and say 'Do you want to go down that road rather than get a better political deal than Ben Ali and Mubarak'," the European diplomat said.
In many conversations over the past week with Yemenis ranging from many walks of life, most blamed Saleh and his family for the woes of this largely tribal state.
It is awash with weaponry and corruption and racked by a secessionist movement in the south, a Shi'ite insurrection in the north and a growing al Qaeda presence in the centre.
Some analysts and ordinary Yemenis say the threat from al Qaeda, while real enough, has been exaggerated for political advantage by Saleh. He has in the past allied with such jihadi groups in the past -- during a 1994 civil war in the south and in attempts to crush a Shi'ite Houthi insurgency in the north.
The unrest over the past few months has helped al Qaeda, which is making inroads by taking over towns abandoned by government forces and building alliances with tribes and other groups in some provinces along the coast.
But critics say Saleh's warning that al Qaeda could fill the political and security vacuum if he is forced out is largely a bluff to portray himself as indispensable -- above all to the United States, which has supplied him with hundreds of millions of dollars of counter-terrorism funding.
"Saleh's even turned terrorism into an investment strategy by exaggerating the threat of al Qaeda in Yemen to get more foreign aid," said Adel Raqib Abdel-Hady, a 32-year-old teacher at the camp set up by pro-democracy protesters in Sanaa.
FEW FRIENDS LEFT
In dozens of conversations in Yemen over the past week, it was hard to find anyone who wanted Saleh to stay. Each segment of society had its own reasons for rejecting him.
The rich resent him because he has failed to establish a modern state with institutions similar to the high-tech models built by their neighbours in the city-states of the Gulf.
The poor complain they cannot feed their children or climb out of the poverty that traps 40 percent of Yemenis, who live on less than ${esc.dollar}2 a day in the poorest of all the Arab states.
The small but increasingly indignant middle class is enraged by the corruption and backwardness that denies opportunity to their young.
Khaled Tawfik, 35, a businessman sipping tea and working on a laptop at the Mukha Bunn cafe in Sanaa, said: "We want change.
"Not only the poor want the change but also the rich and the middle class. Yemen has been suffering from corruption and stagnation on all levels."
Adel Saleh, 35, an aid worker, said: "We travel abroad and see how all the countries around us have moved up and how we are still backward. Saleh regards the people as a herd of animals.
"He and his gang steal all the foreign aid that comes to Yemen. We want a modern country, like Turkey."
Yemeni villages, many without decent roads, schools or hospitals, testify to government neglect over the years. The capital itself is rundown, shabby and polluted. It has an air of destitution and decay, with mounds of uncollected rubbish, swamps and leaking sewage as principal features.
Some of the terracotta-coloured, arabesque houses of Sanaa's old city are still an architectural delight and the few enclaves of luxury housing, coffee shops, restaurants and cafes that have sprung up are isolated oases of prosperity amid the squalor.
On the streets of Sanaa, the number of beggars is staggering. Even when last week's fighting forced most residents to stay indoors, crowds of beggars, including women holding babies, laid siege to the few cars stopping at traffic lights, knocking on windows begging for money to eat.
"Saleh has turned Yemeni society into a society of beggars that live on charity, foreign aid and grants," said Mohammed al-Maytami, professor of economics at Sanaa University.
Analysts and diplomats say the determining factors that may fuel even more popular upheaval against Saleh and affect his survival is the economy.
"The situation is alarming. In the next three months there will be an economic meltdown if the crisis is unresolved," Maytami said.
"Saleh has destroyed our country and our youth," said Mohammed al-Jaradi, a retired soldier, 50, who was protesting in Sanaa. "He crushed our future and we accepted our lot but we want to save the future of our sons. This is why we will not back down and won't be silenced so that our sons will have a better future."
In central Sanaa, at the area protesters have dubbed Freedom and Change Square, activists agree that the Saleh-Ahmar fighting has stolen the attention from their peaceful movement. But they say they won't give up their campaign to topple him.
"We are still here to bring down this regime, even if it takes another week, another month or another year," said student Yusra al-Abssi, 18, at a protest camp. "We are going to stay here until he leaves. And God willing, it will be this week.
"Everybody -- the poor and the rich, the illiterate and the educated -- they are all here," she said.
"He has nobody with him. The era of despots is over."
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