Yemen officials: 25 troops killed in missile strike

SANAA, Yemen — A missile attack launched by Shiite rebels in Yemen hit an army camp Saturday, killing at least 25 troops, Yemeni officials said.

The strike in the central province of Marib wounded around 10 others. Officials said they expected the death toll to rise as burn victims were rushed to hospitals. Marib lies about 70 miles east of the capital, Sanaa.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to talk to the media.

The Houthi attack on the military training camp followed an ongoing barrage of assaults by Saudi-backed government forces on rebel targets east of Sanaa. Those attacks killed at least 22 people on both sides, according to officials. The combat signaled a major escalation in the capital’s eastern suburbs after months of relative quiet.

Also on Saturday, Houthi fighters and government forces traded heavy volleys of artillery fire just south of the Hodeida port, killing at least seven people, including two civilians, according to Wadah Dobish, a spokesman for government forces on Yemen’s western coast. The statement said residential areas were caught in the crosshairs due to indiscriminate mortar fire.

The fighting breaches a U.N.-brokered cease-fire in the strategic port city of Hodeida, which is the main entry point for humanitarian aid and food into Yemen.

Iran-backed Houthi rebels have remained in control of the capital, Sanaa, along with much of the country’s north, since ousting the government of President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi in 2014.

The conflict became a regional proxy war months later, when a Saudi-led military coalition intervened to drive out the Houthis and restore the internationally recognized government.

The grinding war has killed more than 10,000 people.

HELSINKI — Sweden’s government summoned the Chinese ambassador in Stockholm to discuss his comments Saturday that compared Swedish media coverage of China to a lightweight boxer who “provokes a feud” with a heavyweight.

Chinese Ambassador Gui Congyou used the boxing metaphor while speaking with Swedish public broadcaster SVT. Swedish Foreign

Minister Ann Linde on Saturday called the envoy’s statement an “unacceptable threat.”

Linde said she has summoned him to discuss the issue on Tuesday. “Freedom of speech prevails” in Sweden, and “what China’s ambassador now does is very serious,” she said.

In his remarks to SVT, Gui said he believes Swedish journalists have interfered in China’s internal affairs with their reporting. He didn’t give specific examples, but he said the relationship between his country and Swedish media is reminiscent of two boxers. He didn’t specify the allegations.

“It’s like a 48-kilogram lightweight boxer who provokes a feud with an 86-kilogram heavyweight boxer, who out of kindness and goodwill urges the (smaller) boxer to take care of himself,” Gui said.

Linde said she interpreted the ambassador’s comments as an attempt to muzzle the media in a nation that prizes freedom of speech and is perceived internationally as a strong human rights advocate.