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The Arab League has backed the idea of a no-fly zone over Libya, reports say, as rebels continue to be pushed back by Colonel Gaddafi's forces. A special meeting in Cairo voted to ask the UN Security Council to impose the policy, diplomats told news agencies.

A British diplomatic effort to reach out to Libyan rebels has ended in humiliation as a team of British special forces and intelligence agents left Benghazi after being briefly detained. The six SAS troops and two MI6 officers were seized by Libyan rebels in the eastern part of the country after arriving by helicopter four days ago. They left on HMS Cumberland, the frigate that had docked in Benghazi to evacuate British and other EU nationals as Libya lurched deeper into conflict. The diplomatic team's departure marked a perfunctory end to a bizarre and botched venture. .... According to Guardian...

ATHENS, Greece - The U.S. Navy says two vessels carrying Marines have departed an American base on Crete as part of a military buildup around Libya. Souda Bay navy base spokesman Paul Farley says the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge and the USS Ponce departed the base after 3 p.m. local time (1300 GMT). The ships had docked in Souda Bay Friday, two days after 400 Marines from the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Unit based at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina also arrived in Crete.

British troops have reportedly been put on stand-by for deployment to Libya if the crisis in the country worsens. A Daily Telegraph report quoted sources as saying that the Black Watch, 3rd Battalion the Royal Regiment of Scotland, has been placed on heightened readiness, prepared to deploy to North Africa at 24 hours' notice. The 600-strong infantry unit returned from Afghanistan in late 2009 and is based at Fort George near Inverness. The Ministry of Defence insisted that the battalion was prepared for humanitarian relief operations, not combat. But the disclosure that British troops are on stand-by came amid growing...

PARIS, March 3 (Reuters) - France and Britain would support the idea of setting up a no-fly zone over Libya if Muammar Gaddafi's forces continue attacks against citizens, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said on Thursday.

Around 400 US Marines have been dispatched to a US base in Greece ahead of deployment on warships off Libya, an American military spokesman said today. "The operation is part of forces reposition in the region... with regard to Libya," said Paul Farley, spokemsan for the US Souda base on the island of Crete. He said the troops from North Carolina arrived at the base on Wednesday and would later join two US warships in Mediterranean. The USS Kearsage and the USS Ponce steamed into the Mediterranean en route to Libya yesterday, the Suez Canal Authority said. The Kearsage amphibious...

Britain has backtracked from its belligerent military stance over Libya after the Obama administration publicly distanced itself from David Cameron's suggestion that Nato should establish a no-fly zone over the country and that rebel forces should be armed. As senior British military sources expressed concern that Downing Street appeared to be overlooking the dangers of being sucked into a long and potentially dangerous operation, the prime minister said Britain would go no further than contacting the rebel forces at this stage.

(Reuters) - Establishing a no-fly zone in Libya would be a 'challenging' military operation, a senior U.S. military official said on Tuesday. "My military opinion is that it would be challenging," General James Mattis, commander of U.S. Central Command, told a Senate hearing. "You would have to remove air defense capabilty in order to establish a no-fly zone, so no illusions here ...

NATO forces may attack forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi if the Libyan air force continues to bomb anti-government protesters, the London-based al-Quds al-Arabi reported, citing a European official claiming the US had threatened to intervene in the violence. The source said NATO and US warplanes stationed in Italy may be ordered to take down Libyan planes, and that electronic warfare against them may already have been implemented. (Roee Nahmias)

North Korea kept a lid on its military response during the South’s Yeonpyeong Island live-fire exercise on Monday, but behind the scenes the two militaries jockeyed for position, according to South Korean military sources. The South Korean Armed Forces had deployed unmanned aerial vehicles to monitor unusual activity from the North, but its military jammed the plane’s navigation system, rendering the aerial vehicle ineffective. There was also intelligence that North Korea was preparing to fire antiaircraft missiles. A South Korean military source said that light beams to guide surface-to-air missiles had been detected on Monday at an antiaircraft base in...

SEOUL, Dec. 20 (Yonhap) -- South Korea concluded a live-fire exercise Monday from a border island shelled last month by North Korea, but the communist nation has not made any provocative moves despite its earlier threat to strike back, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said. Tensions spiked earlier Monday when the South said it would carry out the planned exercise from Yeonpyeong Island in the Yellow Sea, which was bombarded in a North Korean artillery strike on Nov. 23, leaving four people dead, including two civilians. In the run-up to the exercise, Pyongyang warned that it would respond to...

North Korea has deployed multiple rocket launchers along the shore north of Yeonpyeong, Baeknyeong and Gangwha islands in response to a planned South Korean artillery drill on Yeonpyeong, government sources here say. The North earlier threatened an "unpredicted self-defense counterattack" to the drills. A South Korean government source said, "After making the threat in a message sent Friday, North Korea raised the alert level at artillery divisions on the west coast and deployed the multiple rocket launchers." The source added the South Korean military is monitoring the situation. The North also reportedly made coastal artillery ready to fire and put...

North Korea asked America to arrange an Eric Clapton concert in Pyongyang, saying that it could help to persuade Kim Jong-il to allow humanitarian aid into the country. A confidential cable dated 22 May 2007 from the US ambassador in Seoul to Washington reveals North Korean officials "suggested" to the Americans that because Kim Jong-il's second son, Kim Jong-chol, was "a great fan" of the British guitarist, a "performance could be an opportunity to build goodwill". The report adds that "arranging an Eric Clapton concert in Pyongyang… could be useful, given Kim Jong-il's second son's devotion to the rock legend".

(Reuters) - Japan feels in crisis over North Korea's attack on a South Korean island and plans to step up its cooperation with the United States and South Korea in response, a Japanese defense official said Saturday. Last month North Korea dramatically raised tensions in east Asia when it shelled the island of Yeonpyeong, hitting a South Korean military base and killing four people. South Korea said it was conducting military exercises at the time but insists test firings were not directed toward North Korea. "In Japan we have a strong sense of crisis over the North Korean artillery attack...

LONDON (BNO NEWS) -- WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Friday in an online chat with the British newspaper The Guardian said that some of the upcoming U.S. diplomatic cables address unidentified flying objects (UFOs). Assange was asked by a visitor of The Guardian whether WikiLeaks had ever received any documents relating to UFOs or extraterrestrials. In response, Assange said the receive many e-mails which relate to UFOs. "Many weirdos email us about UFOs or how they discovered that they were the anti-christ whilst talking with their ex-wife at a garden party over a pot-plant," Assange wrote. "However, as yet they...

The defense minister-nominee vowed Friday to use fighter jets to bomb North Korean targets in the event of an additional attack on South Korea, saying he considers the North Korean leadership and military as the country’s “main enemy.” He also defended Seoul’s decision in June to postpone regaining wartime operational control from the United States by more than three years to December 2015, alleging the country’s military needs enough time to fully prepare for the transfer. “Should the enemy attack our territory and people once again, we will fight back resolutely. I’ll order air strikes to completely remove the source...

Since the North’s attack on Yeonpyeong Island, one question has emerged repeatedly in the aftermath: What did the South’s response fire do to North Korea? For the first two days, the South Korean government and military said they were “collecting intelligence” and blamed cloudy weather for the delay in verifying how much damage had been done to the North Korean side. As the furor from the public and lawmakers grew with the discovery of two civilian deaths in addition to the two marines, military officials started making firm assertions that the North’s western coast, at which South Korean troops on...

Following the end of the four-day “high-intensity” joint naval exercise by the United States and South Korea in the West Sea, Wednesday, allied forces are bracing for further provocative acts by North Korea. The concern comes as South Korea’s marines are considering holding a live-fire exercise next week. The Nov. 23 shelling of Yeonpyeong Island occurred after the South held such a drill near the Northern Limit Line (NLL), the de facto sea border in the West Sea. After the joint exercise, the South Korean military will remain on the highest alert, according to the JCS. Col. Kim Young-cheol at...

Dec 1 (Reuters) - The United States Navy is seeking a medium-ranged (MR) oil tanker to move at least 30,000 tonnes of jet fuel from Japan to South Korea from early next week, industry sources said. The transport route being requested by the U.S. Navy is rare, shipping sources said, and comes after the U.S. moved an aircraft carrier to the region following a North Korean artillery attack on the south. "They are looking to book this vessel for a period of up to 60 days," a Singapore-based shipbroker said. The U.S. Navy is normally buyer of jet fuel in...

The Joint Chiefs of Staff held an emergency meeting to discuss plans to beef up combat capability in the Yellow Sea and readiness against additional provocations from North Korea. Presided over by the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Han Min-goo, the meeting involved discussions on preventing North Korean provocation in the five islands in the Yellow Sea near the maritime inter-Korean border. The meeting also went over plans to boost combat capability and reviewed the readiness of the Army, Navy and Air Force to begin operations immediately. The JCS said the top officers in the Korean military all agreed that...