Two U.S. warships carrying marines and equipment entered the Suez Canal on Wednesday en route to Libya, as the United States and Europe piled pressure on Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.

"The USS Kearsarge and the USS Ponce entered the Suez Canal from the southern entrance at 6:00 am (0400 GMT) and are making their way to the Mediterranean Sea," a canal authority official said.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Tuesday that Syria’s relations with Iran and Hizbullah are not in the interest of Damascus in the long-run.

That’s why Washington sent a new ambassador to Damascus, Clinton said during a testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

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.

North Korea Tuesday threatened a military response to ongoing U.S.-South Korean military drills, blasting them as preparations for a nuclear war of aggression against it.

Seoul and Washington say the annual war games which began Monday are routine and defensive in nature, but Pyongyang calls them a rehearsal for invasion.

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.

The United States on Monday told defiant Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi he must "go now," repositioned forces near Libya and raised the prospect of exile for its foe, as it cranked up pressure on his fragile regime.

Washington further stiffened its rhetoric and said it was talking to Libyan opposition groups, apparently seeking to further destabilize Gadhafi after an uprising against his decades-long rule that has killed more than 1,000 people.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged the international community Monday to work together on further steps to end the crisis in Libya, adding that Washington was keeping all options on the table.

"We all need to work together on further steps to hold the Gadhafi government accountable, provide humanitarian assistance to those in need and support the Libyan people as they pursue a transition to democracy," she told the U.N. Human Rights Council.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Monday that weapons manufactured and delivered to "dictators" by the United States were killing protesters in uprisings around the Arab world.

The hardliner said that the United States and its allies must be blamed for imposing dictatorships on regional countries now in the grip of deadly revolts.

Frank Buckles, who lied about his age to get into uniform during World War I and lived to be the last surviving U.S. veteran of that war, has died. He was 110.

Buckles, who also survived being a civilian POW in the Philippines in World War II, died peacefully of natural causes early Sunday at his home in Charles Town, biographer and family spokesman David DeJonge said in a statement. Buckles turned 110 on Feb. 1 and had been advocating for a national memorial honoring veterans of World War I in Washington, D.C.

U.S. and South Korean troops on Monday launched major annual land, sea and air exercises, amid North Korean threats to turn Seoul into a "sea of flames" in the event of any provocation.

The Key Resolve/Foal Eagle drills are the first of their type since the communist state's deadly shelling of a South Korean border island last November.