The EU extended financial sanctions against the regime of Moammar Gadhafi, who hasn't stopped launching deadly air raids and artillery attacks against rebel positions. Five financial institutions, among them the country's sovereign wealth fund and central bank, will be included in the sanctions, the BBC reports.

This comes after several Western states, including Germany, France and non-EU member Switzerland, froze personal assets of Gadhafi and his family. In another strong sign of support for the rebels, France Thursday formally recognized the Libyan National Council and said it would send a diplomat to the group's stronghold Benghazi, in the country's east.

NATO's 28 defense ministers met Thursday in Brussels amid calls by some members, including Britain and France, to establish a no-fly zone over Libya to prevent Gadhafi from using his fighter jets to attack the rebels.

Washington has been cautious when it comes to calling for a military engagement, and Germany, Europe's largest economy, has said that the United Nations and the Arab League, which meets this Saturday, would have to back such a step.

Turkey, NATO's third-largest member, is against military involvement; so are China and Russia, two U.N. Security Council members who could veto military strikes in Libya.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has warned that a no-fly zone would be difficult to enforce, adding it would involve destroying Libya's air defense systems.

His British counterpart, Liam Fox, Thursday told the BBC that a no-fly zone wouldn't have to mean that Western planes bomb ground targets in Libya.

"In Iraq that was not the way that we carried out the no-fly zone," Fox told the BBC. "Rather than taking out air defenses, you can say that if your air defense radar locks on to any of our aircraft we regard that as a hostile act and we take subsequent action."

Several Western countries have moved military vessels toward North Africa. British defense officials said some 600 British troops had been put on 24-hour notice to be deployed to Libya, The Daily Telegraph newspaper reported last week.

The West is worried by reports that thousands of people have been killed by the ongoing violence in Libya. Observers say they fear the crisis could turn the country into a destabilizing factor in the region, increase migrant flows to Europe and undermine the global economic recovery by increasing the oil price.

Gadhafi's forces have attacked several oil industry sites, including the country's largest oil terminal at the port of Sidra, television network al-Jazeera reported.

earlier related report
Libya frees Brazilian reporter
Tripoli (AFP) March 10, 2011 - Libyan security forces freed Thursday a Brazilian reporter detained since March 2 but held on to an award-winning Iraqi journalist working for a British newspaper, their employers said.

Andrei Netto, 34, was at the ambassador's residence waiting to leave Libya for France after being held for eight days in Sabratha, a town 70 kilometers (45 miles) west of Tripoli, the Brazilian daily Estado de Sao Paulo said.

The newspaper said Netto -- a Paris-based correspondent who entered Libya via Tunisia on February 19 and whose detention was made public earlier Thursday -- was "in good health."

Brazil's GloboNews television network said Netto was hit by a gun butt and hooded by four men when he tried to obtain authorization from Libyan officials to stay in the country.

He was held in a cell in a military base and his repeated requests to contact the Brazilian ambassador were refused.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff had ordered her government take "urgent measures" to have Netto released after the newspaper confirmed his captivity.

The Estado de Sao Paulo had no information, however, about the fate of the reporter for Britain's daily The Guardian, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad.

He was held in the same cell as Netto for several days, "but the Brazilian reporter does not know where he is right now," the newspaper said.

Both reporters were detained after covering fighting in and near Zawiyah, a town close to Tripoli which Libyan security forces tried to cut off from foreign media. The forces loyal to Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi retook the town Wednesday.

The Guardian said Thursday on its website that Libya's foreign ministry had finally confirmed to it that Abdul-Ahad was in custody.

The newspaper had been urgently seeking information about his whereabouts for days after it lost indirect contact with him last Sunday.

Abdul-Ahad has worked for The Guardian since 2004, reporting from Somalia, Sudan, Iraq and Afghanistan, the daily said.

He has won the British Press Awards foreign reporter of the year prize, and was shortlisted again this year.

A well-informed source in Tripoli told AFP that Abdul-Ahad had been arrested because he "entered the country illegally."

The source did not provide details on when the newsman was detained, where he was being held or what his condition was.

On Wednesday, the BBC reported that three of its journalists -- a Briton, a Palestinian and a Turk -- had been detained at a checkpoint close to Zawiyah.

They said they were subjected to mock executions by laughing Libyan security officers, and the Palestinian and Turk were repeatedly beaten. All three were released from military barracks in Tripoli after 21 hours and have left the country.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, said the treatment given to the BBC team by Kadhafi's men "could amount to torture" under international law.

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