Yemen's government said Monday it had killed at least 20 rebels amid heavy bombing in the north of the country and the rebels accused President Ali Abdullah Saleh of being a tyrant. Seven Yemeni soldiers, including a colonel, were also killed in an ambush in the northern mountains as they pressed a month-old offensive against Shiite rebels, witnesses said. The army declined to comment. “The air hawks succeeded in directing painful blows to the elements of terrorism,” a military source said in a statement, referring to several districts in Saada province. The statement said 20 people died, including five leaders among the rebels of the Shi'ite Zaydi sect, in clashes. The government says the ordinary residents of Saada do not support the uprising against central authority, which began in 2004. The rebels, referred to as Houthis after the clan of their leaders, acknowledged the air bombardment. “Bombing intensified on the city of Dahyan causing huge damage to the houses of citizens, commercial enterprises and public and private property,” a statement said. President Ali Abdullah Saleh said last week the rebels were receiving funding from groups in Iran as well as from Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and the foreign minister said the government would not back down from its ceasefire conditions. The government in Sana'a says the rebels want to restore a Shi'ite state that fell in the 1960s. A statement from a rebel figure named Yahya Al-Houthi accused the government of veteran leader Saleh of tyranny, corruption and escalating the conflict with the military operation it launched in early August. “You will only create more camps of displaced people through this unjust internal war you insist on, camps which Yemen only ever had under your watch as president,” he said, addressing the Western
