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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States will repel any attempt to take Syria’s oil fields away from U.S.-backed Syrian militia with “overwhelming force,” whether the opponent is Islamic State or even forces backed by Russia or Syria, the Pentagon said on Monday. The U.S. military announced last week it was reinforcing its position in Syria with additional assets, including mechanized forces, to prevent oilfields from being taken over by remnants of the Islamic State militant group or others. U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper offered some of his most detailed remarks to date about the mission at a news briefing on...

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Rebel leaders won recognition as the legitimate government of Libya from the United States and other world powers on Friday in a major boost to the rebels' faltering campaign to oust Muammar Gaddafi. Recognition of the rebels, announced by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at a meeting in Turkey of the international contact group on Libya, is an important diplomatic step which could unlock billions of dollars in frozen Libyan funds.

<p>Colonels and commanders who defected from Libya's military attended a ceremony in June to proclaim support for the revolution.</p> <p>RUJBAN, Libya — For months now, military leaders in the rebel capital, Benghazi, have boldly predicted lightning advances by their fighters and an imminent rout of the forces loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi in Tripoli that would finally snuff out his brutal four-decade rule.</p>

(snip) "I reminded them that Kuwait and Saudi Arabia reimbursed us after Operation Desert Storm," McCain says. "They said they'd be glad to discuss that.(snip) "They're very good people," he says. "Mainly well-educated, a number of women in the [Transitional National Council] -- very normal, dedicated people." (snip) McCain dismissed concerns that rebel forces include some veterans of al Qaeda. "I'm sure that there may be some element there, but I guarantee you that they didn't rise up because they wanted to be al Qaeda fighters," McCain says. "They rose up because they wanted to throw off the yoke of...

ROME (Reuters) - At least 40 civilians have been killed in air strikes by Western forces on Tripoli, the top Vatican official in the Libyan capital told a Catholic news agency on Thursday, quoting witnesses. "The so-called humanitarian raids have killed dozens of civilian victims in some neighborhoods of Tripoli," said Giovanni Innocenzo Martinelli, the Apostolic Vicar of Tripoli. "I have collected several witness accounts from reliable people. In particular, in the Buslim neighborhood, due to the bombardments, a civilian building collapsed, causing the death of 40 people," he told Fides, the news agency of the Vatican missionary arm. Libyan...

Key Dem: Attacks on Libya 'because of oil'By Michael O'Brien - 03/21/11 01:30 PM ET The United States military action against Libya is motivated by a desire for affordable and accessible oil, a top Democrat on environmental issues said Monday. Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), the ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee, said that he agreed with President Obama's decision to launch, along with allies, attacks against Libya and its leader, Moammar Gadhafi. But Markey said the attacks were primarily motivated by oil. "We are in Libya because of oil," Markey said on MSNBC. "It all goes back to...

"We're in Libya because of oil. And I think both Japan and the nuclear technology and this dependence we have on imported oil have both once again highlighted the need for the United States to have a renewable energy agenda going forward," Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) said on MSNBC.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Saturday that the U.S. military, already fighting two wars in Muslim nations, would have no trouble enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya if President Obama orders one. The comments appeared designed to counter the criticism surrounding his earlier remarks on the issue and came as the Arab League endorsed a no-fly zone to protect Libya's civilians from forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi. Gates indicated earlier this month that the creation of a no-fly zone would be a "big operation." NATO would need to deploy an array of air power to target not...

LONDON -- Convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbasset al Megrahi returned to a hero’s welcome in Libya a year ago today. He’d been sentenced to life in prison for his role in the 1988 terror act against Pan Am flight 103, which left 270 people dead, most of them Americans. He was released by the Scottish government last year on what was called “compassionate grounds.” He has terminal cancer and it was claimed he had three months to live. He’s still alive. “This is a man who showed absolutely no compassion to anyone,” wife of a Lockerbie victim Stephanie Bernstein told Fox...

The son of Libyan dictator Colonel Gadaffi is to celebrate the first anniversary of the Lockerbie bomber's release by giving a party for him. Saif Gadaffi, whose friends include Tony Blair and Lord Mandelson, will attend the revelry for Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi in his two-storey house in Tripoli. He will foot the bill for food and drink, following a day's fasting during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. When Megrahi, 58, was released on August 20 last year, Scottish authorities said he had only three months to live and was 'going home to die'. Frank Duggan, a lawyer...

BP will this week step up its fight against an "unconstitutional" proposal to ban it from new US offshore drilling, which the British Embassy has warned could be seen as protectionism. US lawmakers have been working for more than a month on new legislation to stop any company from winning offshore oil licences if it has contributed to the deaths of more than 10 workers in the last seven years. The proposal cleared another hurdle by passing through the House of Representatives late on Friday night, but it still has some way to go before becoming law. Its progress has...

Terrorism: The administration says it was surprised and angry at the Lockerbie bomber's "compassionate" release. Now a letter reveals that it actually lobbied for it. Was this malicious intent or mere incompetence? Last week, at a joint press conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron, President Obama was asked what he thought about a possible Senate investigation into the "Lockerbie bomber stuff" — namely that British Petroleum, among its other sins, lobbied the British government to release convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi in order to win oil contracts from the Libyan government. Obama replied: "I think all of us...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A U.S. Senate committee has canceled a much-publicized hearing slated for this Thursday on the release of the convicted Lockerbie bomber after the panel was turned down in its request for key witnesses from BP and the British and Scottish governments. An aide to Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, who was slated to chair the hearing, informed

<p>THE US government secretly advised Scottish ministers it would be "far preferable" to free the Lockerbie bomber than jail him in Libya.</p> <p>Correspondence obtained by The Sunday Times reveals the Obama administration considered compassionate release more palatable than locking up Abdel Baset al-Megrahi in a Libyan prison.</p>

LONDON (AFP) – Scottish ministers on Wednesday defended their decision to free the Lockerbie bomber after renewed US anger over the release threatened to spoil the new British premier's first visit to the White House. Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond said he did not regret freeing Libyan Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds last August. And Salmon denied claims from US lawmakers that the release formed part of an oil deal between BP and resource-rich Libya. "If you take a decision in good faith, you don't regret it," Salmond, the leader of Scotland's devolved government, told BBC radio. He...

The agenda for today's White House meetings between President Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron included the war in Afghanistan, the Middle East peace process and cooperation on the global economy. But overshadowing those pressing policy issues were questions over the role that oil company BP had in pushing for the release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al Megrahi last year in order to help secure a lucrative oil exploration deal with Libya. ...Cameron insisted repeatedly today that the decision to release Megrahi was solely that of the Scottish government and he has not seen anything to indicate that they...

A U.S. lawmaker is calling on the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations to investigate whether BP influenced the release of Pan Am Flight 103 Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi. Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey wants to know whether a quid pro quo led to the 2009 decision by U.K. and Scottish lawmakers to set the Libyan terrorist free. Megrahi was sentenced to life in prison in 2001, but released last year when doctors said he had only three months to live before dying of cancer. A doctor now says he could live a decade, according to the Associated...

The force of Russia’s attack against Georgia this weekend sends a strong signal that Moscow is determined not to relinquish control over the oil-rich Caspian region. Georgia has scant energy resources of its own, but hosts pipelines built by international oil majors to carry Caspian oil and gas to western markets. Its railways also transport substantial volumes of oil from the region to Black Sea ports. The east-west energy corridor across Azerbaijan and Georgia to Turkey established with strong political backing from the US, has eroded Russia’s stranglehold over energy exports from one of the world’s few remaining untapped oil...