(IPS) – More than 200 people have been killed in clashes between Islamic rebels and government forces using warplanes and tanks; this is not Iraq , but the picture of new developments in Yemen . Thousands of families are at risk as the clashes continue in the Marran mountains of Saddah area. Saddah is about 150km north of capital Sana’a, and close to the border with Saudi Arabia . It is the main centre of the Zaidi Shia sect founded about 1,000 years ago. The rebels have been chanting slogans against the United States and Israel , according to local reports. Air attacks and tank assaults have not been successful so far in getting rebel leader Hussein Badr al-Deen al-Hothy. Al-Hothy, former member of Parliament for the al-Haq (Truth) party is now leading an organization called ‘Believing Youth’. The government accuses al-Hothi of setting up a group modeled on the Lebanese Hizbollah to re-establish monarchy in Yemen by force. Leader of the Hizbollah in Lebanon Hassan Nasrallah denied any links with the rebels in Saddah. ”The Hizbollah policy is not to intervene in other countries’ affairs,” he said in a statement. The rebellion has created divisions also among Zaidi scholars. Some Zaidi Shia clerics have dismissed the rebellion as only a ”fitnah” (disturbance) among Yemeni Muslims. Zaidi judge Ahmed al-Shami says the military action is only following a fatwa issued by chairman of the Public Fatwa Authority Hamoud bin Abbas al-Moayyad. Earlier this week the Yemeni government ordered closure of all unlicensed religious schools. ”Due to the connection between extremism, militancy and certain curricula that promote deviant and alien ideologies, the Cabinet has issued orders for the immediate closure of all schools and centers violating the education law,” the cabinet said in a statement.