CAIRO – Gunmen armed with rocket-propelled grenades attacked a border guard post Saturday in Egypt’s western desert, killing 21 troops deployed in the province along the border with neighboring Libya.

Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi called it a “terrorist attack” on soldiers defending the country’s borders that will “not go unanswered.”

The attack was the second in as many months on the same post.

Alleged cocaine cartel head arrested

MADRID – Spanish police have arrested one of Colombia’s most-wanted criminals, a 40-year-old man nicknamed the Rat who is one of the leaders of a drug cartel linked to 400 murders and the shipment of large amounts of cocaine to Europe and America.

Hernan Alonso Villa was arrested Friday near the Mediterranean port city of Alicante, police said in a statement.

Police in Colombia said Alonso Villa is leader of the military wing of the so-called Envigado Office, named for a district in Medellin.

Strongest typhoon in decades kills 17

BEIJING – A powerful storm hit southern China and killed 17 people after claiming at least 94 lives in the Philippines, officials said today.

Typhoon Rammasun killed nine people and left five missing after hitting Hainan Island on Friday off China’s southern coast, said an official at the Ministry of Water Resources’ flood control department. Eight others died later in the Guangxi region as the storm plowed into the mainland on its way north to Vietnam.

The typhoon is the strongest to hit southern China in 41 years, according to the China Meteorological Administration. Wind speeds reached 130 miles per hour.

400 migrants rescued from boat

ROME – Italian and Maltese naval vessels assisted by a passing Danish cargo ship rescued some 400 migrants aboard a smugglers’ boat in waters near Malta and found the bodies of 18 people inside early Saturday.

Italian Coast Guard Capt. Filippo Marini said one rescued migrant died aboard a Coast Guard motorboat, raising the death toll to 19.

Maltese authorities said many of the bodies were in the vessel’s hold. Italian authorities said engine fume inhalation was the apparent cause of death.

Malta said that since Thursday some 5,000 migrants have been rescued by Italy, many with Maltese help.