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Both sides in Yemen's desultory war reached a point last November when a cease-fire and truce talks seemed about to achieve some kind of settlement. No such luck. The Nasser-backed republicans declined to give up their claim to power in San'a, the capital, and the royalists were not about to abandon the bitter fight waged in the hills by their leader, the deposed Imam Mohamed el Badr.

Last week the truce game was over. Tribesmen supporting the Imam poured out of their mountain fastness to launch a successful attack on Razeh, near the Saudi Arabian border. The jubilant royalists claimed to have killed, wounded and captured more than a thousand Egyptians and republicans. At the same time, two tribes in the mountains 20 miles from San'a declared their support for the royalists and drove back an Egyptian force sent to subdue them.

Heavy Thalers. The bloody civil war, which may have cost over 100,000 dead, is one that everyone is sick of and no one knows how to stop. During the ceasefire, negotiations broke down because the republicans refused to give up the republic and the royalists refused to abandon the Imam. And al most all Yemenis, of whatever political stripe, want to be rid of Egyptian troops, who behave more like an army of occupation than an ally.

Republican President Abdullah Sallal, faced by recurrent Cabinet resignations and growing unrest, keeps running back and forth to Cairo for more help. Nasser gives it, but has reportedly called Sallal a "weak-minded boob." Yemen's Premier, General Hassan Amri, 48, a tough, no-nonsense operator, seems to be emerging as the new republican strongman.

Imam Badr is showing far more political skill than before. His ragtag army is supplied with arms, munitions and money (heavy Maria Theresa thalers shipped in by camel caravan) from Saudi Arabia and British-administered South Arabia, neither of which wants Nasser as a near neighbor. The royalist radio last week skillfully tried to widen the split in republican ranks by promising amnesty to all nonroyalists once the Egyptians were withdrawn. Further, Imam Badr promised the people of Yemen a new form of government: "a constitutionally democratic system" ruled by a "national assembly elected by the people of Yemen a new form of government: "a constitutionally democratic system" ruled by a "national assembly elected by the people."

Mass Raids. At week's end Nasser's response was all that Sallal could have hoped for. Armor and artillery poured into Yemen's ports from a flotilla of ships; ammunition and troop reinforcements arrived by transport plane from Cairo. Once again Nasser's fighter planes made mass raids on royalist strongholds in the mountains. As they have for the past two years, the royalists endured the pounding. When it was over, they crawled from caves and foxholes to dance and sing:

O Gamal Abdel Nasser, we will break your head!

O Gamal A bdel Nasser, you will soon be dead!

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