World scene

SAUDI ARABIA

Yemeni rebels claim to hold soldiers

RIYADH | Yemen’s Shi’ite rebels said they captured some Saudi soldiers Friday, after Riyadh said it would press on with its offensive until it had cleared them from its territory.

A Saudi official said Thursday that Riyadh had launched air strikes on rebels in northern Yemen after the Shi’ite insurgents made a cross-border raid earlier in the week.

But the Saudi Press Agency said Friday the strikes were “focused on infiltrators in Jabal Dukhan and other targets within the range of operations within Saudi territory.”

Rebel Yemeni spokesman Mohammed Abdel-Salam claimed the capture of soldiers in a telephone interview on Al Jazeera television. Saudi officials were not immediately available for comment. Mr. Abdel-Salam did not say how many soldiers were in rebel hands.

SPAIN

Demand to free pirates rejected

MADRID | Spain said Friday it would not free two captured pirates as demanded by fellow brigands who are holding a Spanish trawler and 33 crew members off the coast of Somalia.

Three crewmen who had been removed from the vessel and taken to the Somali mainland by hijackers to add pressure on Spain to repatriate the arrested pirates were returned to the ship late Friday, Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos said.

He said First Officer Patxi Valdes, ship’s electrician Antonio Manuel Perez and crewman Joaquin Fernandez had been returned to their fishing boat safely. The trawler’s captain told Spanish media Thursday that the pirates on board had threatened to start killing the hostages.

Deputy Defense Minister Constantino Mendez said Friday the two Somali men were captured in connection with the hijacking of the Spanish-registered tuna boat Alakrana on Oct. 2 in the Indian Ocean and brought to Madrid.

GERMANY

Official admits errors in Afghan bombing

BERLIN | German troops made mistakes but acted appropriately when they ordered an air strike on two fuel trucks in Afghanistan that killed dozens of civilians, Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg said Friday.

In his first comments on the Sept. 4 attack, Mr. Guttenberg backed up the German army’s initial assessment of a confidential NATO investigation into the attack on Taliban fighters.

The attack was the most deadly operation involving German troops since World War II, killing 69 Taliban fighters and 30 civilians, according to the Afghan government.

Mr. Guttenberg also acknowledged there were civilian victims - the German government’s first official recognition.

PARAGUAY

President fires head of military

ASUNCION | Paraguay’s leftist president fired the commander of the armed forces Friday, days after dismissing three other military chiefs in a shake-up seen aimed at shoring up his political support among senior ranks.

President Fernando Lugo, a former Roman Catholic bishop, is facing intense pressure from rightist rivals who control Congress, and he warned this week that a “handful of military officers” might be siding with his foes, although he denied any coup threat.

Opponents have criticized the military shake-up, Mr. Lugo’s third since taking office 1 1/2 years ago.

LEBANON

Hezbollah gets Anne Frank barred

BEIRUT | Anne Frank’s diary has been censored out of a school textbook in Lebanon following a campaign by the militant group Hezbollah claiming the classic work promotes Zionism.

The row erupted after Hezbollah learned that excerpts of “The Diary of Anne Frank” were included in the textbook used by a private English-language school in western Beirut.

Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television channel ran a report slamming the book for focusing on the persecution of Jews. A member of the school board, Jimmy Shoufani, told Agence France-Presse the school dropped the textbook from its curriculum after the controversy erupted. He asked that the school not be identified.

Paris-based organization Aladdin’s Project, which fights Holocaust denial and first translated Anne’s diary into Arabic, condemned Hezbollah’s “intimidation campaign.”

CZECH REPUBLIC

U.S. officials discuss missile defense

PRAGUE | Senior U.S. and Czech defense officials held talks Friday to discuss ways for the Czech Republic to participate in a reworked U.S. missile defense plan.

Deputy Defense Secretary Alexander Vershbow told reporters the U.S. “did present … some concrete ideas to begin that process of developing the Czech role in the new approach.”

Mr. Vershbow’s visit comes two weeks after Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. won Czech support for the new plan.

In September the Obama administration scrapped Bush-era blueprints for basing long-range interceptors in Poland and a radar system in the Czech Republic as part of a missile defense shield designed to shoot down long-range missiles from countries including Iran. The new system is focused on short- and medium-range interceptors.