U.S. defense leaders played down the likelihood of imposing a no-fly zone on Libya, urging a cautious approach to any military action against Moammer Gadhafi's forces.

The U.S. military's top officer, Admiral Mike Mullen, said on Tuesday a no-fly zone would be "extraordinarily complex" to carry out while a top general warned there should be "no illusions" about what it would take to shut down the Libyan leader's air force.

Tanks dispersed demonstrators blocking the port in the industrial city of Sohar and the coast road to Muscat on Tuesday as protests were also reported elsewhere in Oman, Agence France Presse journalists and witnesses said.

The operation went peacefully and Omani forces drove away protesters who had been keeping vigil at the Earth Roundabout, a landmark intersection where at least one protester was killed in clashes on Sunday.

Enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya would first require bombing the north African nation's air defense systems, top U.S. commander General James Mattis warned Tuesday.

A no-fly zone would require removing "the air defense capability first," Mattis, the head of Central Command, told a Senate hearing.

The European Union on Tuesday called a crisis summit of its 27 leaders next week to seek a joint response in facing the turmoil both in Libya and in Arab states on Europe's southern flank.

"In light of developments in the EU's southern neighborhood, and especially in Libya, I convened an extraordinary European Council (or summit) on 11/03," EU president Herman Van Rompuy said Tuesday on his Twitter webpage.

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi is a "living political corpse" who has no place in the civilized world and must quit power, the Interfax news agency quoted a Kremlin source as saying Tuesday.

"We believe that even if Gadhafi now manages to dig himself in, he is a living political corpse who has no place in the modern civilized world," the source said in Russia's first clear call for the Libyan leader to quit.

Iran denied that authorities have jailed opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi at a Tehran prison as repeatedly claimed by their family members.

"The published news by some hostile media regarding the transfer of Mr. Mousavi and Mr. Karroubi to Heshmatiyeh detention centre is false," Iran's prosecutor general Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejeie told the ISNA news agency on Tuesday.

Vast numbers of protesters poured into a square in Yemen's capital Sanaa Tuesday for a massive anti-regime rally, as President Ali Abdullah Saleh blamed the U.S. and Israel for a wave of Arab revolts.

Protesters crowded three streets leading to a square near Sanaa University, where students and pro-democracy demonstrators have been camped for more than a week.

Britain announced that it had foiled a plan by Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi to move Libyan banknotes worth 1.4 billion dollars (1 billion Euros) out of Britain.

"The Chancellor of the Exchequer (finance minister) intervened to block the departure of 1.4 billion in notes destined for Libya," British Prime Minister David Cameron said on Monday.

Iranian opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi and their wives have been arrested and put in a Tehran jail, their websites said Monday in reports swiftly denied by a judicial official.

The two had been under house arrest after judiciary chief Ayatollah Sadeq Larijani said earlier this month they had committed "treason" and MPs demanded they be hanged.

"All my people love me," Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi insisted Monday, ignoring mounting global pressure to step down and perhaps head into exile after four decades at the helm of his country.

"They love me. All my people with me. They love me all. They would die to protect me," the veteran Libyan leader said speaking in halting English in an interview with Western media shown on the BBC's world news website.