DUBAI (Dispatches) - The leader of Yemen's Shi'ite rebels may have died after being severely wounded by government forces in the north of the country, a Yemeni government website and media said on Sunday.

The rebels could not immediately be reached and their website did not comment on the reports.
Government troops in Yemen, the poorest Arab state, have been battling Shi'ite rebels, known as Houthis after the family name of their leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, who complain of social, religious and economic discrimination.
The Yemeni defense ministry said on its website that Houthi was wounded in an attack by government forces and might have died from his wounds.
Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television also said the rebel leader was dead, citing unnamed Yemeni sources as saying he was killed in an airstrike. Yemeni news websites carried the same report.
There have been rumors about Abdul-Malik's death in the past but the latest reports appear to be stronger.
The conflict drew in neighboring Saudi Arabia, the top OPEC oil exporter, after the Houthis seized Saudi territory last month, prompting Riyadh to launch a military campaign against them.
The United States and Saudi Arabia fear al Qaeda will exploit instability in Yemen, which also faces a separatist movement in the south, to stage attacks on neighbouring states and beyond.
On Thursday the Yemeni government carried out air strikes on suspected gather of Al Qaeda operatives, supported by U.S. intelligence, killing 30 people reported the LA Times.
At the prodding of the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, the Yemeni military has escalated its campaign against militants in recent months. Washington has provided Yemen with $70 million in military aid this year.
The CIA has carried out strikes in Yemen using Predator aircraft dating back to 2002, when one of the drones fired a missile at a vehicle carrying Al Qaeda leader Qaed Sinan Harithi, a suspected mastermind of the bombing of the U.S. destroyed Cole two years earlier. Harithi and a U.S. citizen in the vehicle were killed.