The U.S. military is not opposed to imposing a no-fly zone over Libya, the Pentagon said on Thursday, despite a stream of skeptical comments by defense leaders.

The caution expressed by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and senior officers over a potential no-fly zone or other military action "should not be interpreted as somehow an opposition to doing this," Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell told MSNBC television.

Egypt's new military rulers told visiting Turkish President Abdullah Gul Thursday they were committed to overseeing a democratic transition after the overthrow of president Hosni Mubarak.

"The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces reiterated its will to manage a democratic transition," Gul told reporters.

Libya is on the verge of civil war, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Thursday, in one of the starkest warnings yet by a world leader over the situation in the country.

"This is an extreme situation," he told Russia's Emergencies Minister Sergei Shoigu, according to state news agency ITAR-TASS.

Cyber activists have created a group on Facebook calling for a "Day of Anger" on Friday in the eastern Shiite-majority Saudi region, following the arrest of a Shiite cleric.

The group of more than 500 members is calling for protests after Friday prayers in Al-Hufuf, in Eastern Province's Al-Ihsaa governorate, to demand the release of Sheikh Tawfiq al-Amer.

A suicide bomber blew himself up inside a bank in the northwestern Iraqi city of Haditha on Thursday, killing nine people including three policemen, the town's mayor said.

Eight other people, all civilians, were wounded in the midday blast at a branch of the state-owned Al-Rafidain bank in Haditha, 210 kilometers northeast of Baghdad, Mayor Bassim Naji said.

Egypt's military rulers have accepted the surprise resignation of Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq, seen by protesters as a symbol of ousted president Hosni Mubarak's regime, the army said Thursday.

He will be replaced by Essam Sharaf, a former minister who took part in the mass demonstrations in Cairo's Tahrir Square which led to strongman Mubarak's resignation on February 11 after three decades in power.

Yemeni opposition groups said Thursday they have offered President Ali Abdullah Saleh plans for a smooth exit from power by the end of 2011 in a bid to end Yemen's spiraling political crisis.

During "a meeting with religious scholars, we've agreed on a settlement proposal including a roadmap for the president's departure before the end of this year," said a statement by the parliamentary opposition spokesman, Mohammed al-Sabri.

Moammar Gadhafi and key aides will be probed over allegations they committed crimes against humanity while fending off the uprising in Libya, the International Criminal Court's prosecutor said Thursday.

"We have identified some individuals with de facto or formal authority, who have authority over the security forces," that have clamped down on a rebellion that started on February 15, Luis Moreno-Ocampo told journalists in The Hague.

The Arab League said Wednesday it would consider backing a no-fly zone over Libya to end its crackdown on anti-regime rebels, but ruled out supporting any direct foreign military intervention.

"The Arab countries cannot remain with their arms folded when the blood of the brotherly Libyan people is being shed," the league said in a resolution after a meeting of foreign ministers in Cairo.

Libyan rebels fought intense battles to repel Moammar Gadhafi's forces from the key eastern oil port of Brega Wednesday as the regime's biggest counter-offensive yet left at least 10 people dead.

Opposition fighters said they had finally pushed Gadhafi's men out of the town on the Mediterranean coast after a day of chaotic clashes, even as a government fighter jet fired two missiles near their victory celebrations.