An international property tycoon found lost, emaciated and with the word "thief" written on his forehead on a country road in Ireland has claimed he was kidnapped and held for more than eight months.

Police said investigations were continuing into the apparent ordeal of Kevin McGeever — who had business dealings in the United States and Dubai — but said he had been "quite vague in his recollection of events."

Superintendent Pat Murray said in a telephone interview Monday that the 68-year-old McGeever had "lost some weight and appeared disheveled and had some beard growth," when he was found Tuesday last week by a couple driving along a road near Ballinamore, County Leitrim, not far from the border with Northern Ireland. 

McGeever claimed he was abducted from his home in the village Craughwell, County Galway, about 70 miles away, on May 27 last year, police said. He was, however, only reported missing on June 22 by his partner Siobhan O'Callaghan.

Media reports have speculated about the involvement Russian mafia, dissident Irish militant groups and border smuggling gangs.

But Murray said police did not have any "definite intelligence of any gangs being involved," saying the case was "very mysterious."

"He [McGeever] is very vague on any kind of detail in relation to what is alleged to have happened to him," he said. "It is only an allegation at the moment."

Murray said reports the word "thief" was carved into McGeever's forehead were untrue, saying the word was written in ink.

The officer said some people had come forward to claim McGeever owed them money, but he added he did not know "how credible that is until we delve into that more deeply."

Police 'hopeful'
Murray said police had spoken to McGeever, who is being treated in a hospital, but planned to have a more formal conversation with him later.

"We're hopeful we'll get to the bottom of exactly what happened in this situation," he said.

Murray said that McGeever had business dealings in the United States and in Dubai.

The tycoon was found wandering in the road by Catherine Vallely and Peter Rehill as they drove home.

“When the man got into our car he told us he had no shoes on. I said he could have been killed in the middle of the road and he said three men threw him out of a van,” Vallely said, according to the Irish Examiner.

“I was surprised. I thought he might have Alzheimer’s or something like that. The man said his name was Kevin and he didn’t realize he was in County Leitrim. He didn’t even know the month, the day or the time,” she added.

Vallely said McGeever called a friend and they agreed to drive to a supermarket car park, but instead stopped at the police station in Ballinamore, where he was given tea and biscuits.

“He said he hadn’t eaten for God knows how long. He had a pair of enormous eyes in a very thin face and his cheekbones stuck out,” Vallely said, according to the Examiner. He was rubbing his beard with fingers that had long nails. He was very well-educated, well-spoken, and polite and articulate.”

The Sunday Independent newspaper reported that McGeever was a “wealthy property developer who sold apartments in Dubai.”

The paper said his mansion at Craughwell was nicknamed “Nirvana” by local people because of its opulence and that his cars included a Ferrari and a Porsche.

Nicola Cooke, a journalist with The Sunday Business Post, said McGeever clearly had "all the trappings of wealth," but was "very much a man of mystery."

She said he was not well known as a businessman, saying he appeared to have been mainly involved in selling apartments in Dubai for about $130,000 to ordinary people in Ireland.

Al-Kataib Media / MAXPPP via EPA

An undated TV grab of footage shot by Al-Kataib Media, made available by MAXPPP on Saturday, shows Denis Allex, a French hostage allegedly held by Somali militants, who was reportedly killed during a failed rescue mission by French soldiers.

WASHINGTON -- The United States helped France last week during an attempted rescue of a secret agent captured by insurgents in Somalia, President Barack Obama confirmed on Sunday in a letter to Congress.

The French team was trying to free Denis Allex, held since 2009 by al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab, but insurgents apparently killed their hostage during the raid, along with a commando.

The French defense ministry said that 17 Somali fighters also died in the fight.

"United States combat aircraft briefly entered Somali airspace to support the rescue operation, if needed. These aircraft did not employ weapons during the operation," Obama said in his letter to U.S. lawmakers.

Obama sent the letter to Congress to fulfill his obligations under the War Powers Resolution, which requires him to inform policymakers within 48 hours of committing armed forces to military action without congressional authorization.

Obama said the operation was warranted to further U.S. national security interests, and said U.S. forces "took no direct part in the assault on the compound where it was believed the French citizen was being held hostage."

Editing by Philip Barbara, Reuters

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TEL AVIV, Israel - One might call it the Armageddon scenario: a massive and coordinated missile attack on Israel from many fronts.

As the rockets rain down, only the United States can save a nation from annihilation.

And they have been warning about it long enough. Now, at last, the direst predictions will be played out.

Now for the good news.

Almost all of this will take place within the safe confines of computerized simulation for three weeks starting next week. 

There is no war, merely the preparation for one, and the Middle East is a place where it pays off to be prepared.

Israeli-American Operation Austere Challenge will not be cheap. The biggest ever joint Israeli-American drill of its type to be conducted throughout Israel and off-shore by the two sides comes with a combined bill of close to $40 million.

According to the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. has pledged $30 million to the exercise and the Israelis estimated their exercise costs at 30 million shekels -- around $7.9 million.

Israelis are prepared – and not – for an Iran attack

The drill will involve some 3,500 U.S. personnel, with around 1,000 troops deployed in theater, along with a navy cruiser to serve as the control center, and Patriot missile defense batteries.

Together the two sides will find out if their command systems and computer codes are compatible.

But if much of the exercise will take place in the virtual world, there’s an all too real world backdrop, which is proving tricky for the military to maneuver around.

"This exercise is purely about improving combined U.S.-Israeli military capability,’’ U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Craig Franklin, told reporters this week.

Iran says it stopped Israeli cyber attack

"It is not related to any national elections nor any perceived tensions in the Middle East,’’ he added.

But, like it or not, this is a drill taking place in the heat of two general election campaigns and during what is surely only a lull in hostilities over Iran.

Austere Challenge has been delayed  and scaled back since the height of Israeli saber-rattling had Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Cheifs of Staff, saying he did not want America to be seen as "complicit" in an Israeli attack.

Both sides have denied that changes to the drill are related to this very public disagreement, and last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed back his deadline to halt Tehran’s nuclear program to next summer.

Still, it’s a conflict delayed, not averted.

Israeli forces strike Gaza targets after rocket salvo

In the meantime, Netanyahu has turned his attentions to fighting for re-election. He wants Iran and Israel’s security to figure as the big issues.

Austere Challenge allows him the chance to re-assure worried voters he’s back on side with their most important ally.

Of course, that’s not a bad message for President Barack Obama to be sending out too, with his own electoral destiny rather closer to hand, and facing Mitt Romney’s charge of "throwing Israel under the bus.’’

Romney: US has 'solemn duty' to prevent Iranian threat to Israel

In military terms, the generals told NBC News this week they will count Austere Challenge a success if they manage to stop any simulated missiles striking Israeli soil.

Political leaders on both sides are hoping for a similar level of protection from their rivals’ rhetorical rockets. 

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Hoang Dinh Nam / AFP - Getty Images

U.S. construction representatives, diplomats and reporters tour a dioxin-contaminated at Danang airport, a former U.S. air base, during a ceremony of the joint U.S.-Vietnam Dioxin Cleaning Project on Thursday.

HANOI, Vietnam -- Nearly four decades after the end of the Vietnam War, the United States and Vietnam on Thursday began cleaning up the toxic chemical Agent Orange on part of Danang International Airport.

The U.S. military sprayed up to 12 million gallons of the defoliant onto Vietnam's jungles over a 10-year period during the war, and the question of compensation for the subsequent health problems is a major post-war issue.

Respiratory cancer and birth defects among both Vietnamese and U.S. veterans have been linked to exposure to Agent Orange.

Thursday marked the first time Washington has been involved in cleaning up Agent Orange in Vietnam.

Old enemies team up to battle Agent Orange

The U.S. government is providing $41 million to the project which will reduce the contamination level in 73,000 cubic meters of soil by late 2016, the ruling Vietnam Communist Party's mouthpiece Nhan Dan daily said.

U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam David Shear said at a ceremony at the former American air base at Danang that the project showed that the two countries were "taking the first steps to bury the legacies of our past," Voice of America (VOA) reported.

PhotoBlog: The legacy of Agent Orange

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has awarded contracts to two U.S. companies to work on the project along with Vietnam defense ministry officials, the U.S. Embassy said.

Danang in Vietnam's central region is a popular tourist destination. During the Vietnam War, that ended in 1975, the beach city was used as a recreational spot for U.S. soldiers.

Return to Vietnam: Meeting a formerly faceless foe

Agent Orange was stored at Danang air base and sprayed from U.S. warplanes to expose northern communist troops and destroy their supplies in jungles along the border with Laos.

Over the next decade, other former U.S. air bases that stored Agent Orange are due to be cleaned up as well, VOA reported.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Slideshow: Vietnam revisited

A look back at the Vietnam War and the battlefield where Col. Jack Jacobs saved many lives, but also lost many friends.

Launch slideshow

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Two Americans have been arrested in connection the death of a female Irish exchange student in Japan, police in Tokyo were reported as saying on Sunday.

Nicola Furlong, 21, from County Wexford, Ireland, was found unconscious in a hotel room early on Thursday, hours after attending a concert by the rapper Nicki Minaj, the Irish Times said.

She was later confirmed dead at a hospital, where an autopsy indicated she may have been strangled.

The Irish Times said Furlong is believed to have gone to Keio Plaza Hotel in Shinjuku, a business and shopping hub in central Tokyo, after midnight with her female friend after the two met the American pair.

The Daily Yomiuri in Japan said police arrested two American men - a musician, 19, and a dancer, 23 - on suspicion of sexually assaulting Furlong's friend and fellow student, 21, in a taxi on the way to the hotel.

It said police suspect the men know how Furlong subsequently died.

The Japan Times said the 19-year-old suspect was alone in a room with Furlong when hotel staff went up to probe a complaint about loud noise.

None of the reports could be confirmed by msnbc.com.

Furling was attending Takasaki City University of Economics in Gunma Prefecture.

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Iran and world powers agreed to meet again in Moscow next month for more talks to try to end the long-running dispute over Tehran's nuclear program, but there was scant progress to resolve the main sticking points between the two sides.

At the heart of the dispute is Iran's insistence that it has the right to enrich uranium and that economic sanctions should be lifted before it stops activities that could lead to its achieving the capability to make nuclear weapons.

Western powers insist Tehran must first shut down enrichment activities before sanctions can be eased.

But both sides have powerful reasons not to abandon diplomacy. The powers want to avert the danger of a new Middle East war raised by Israeli threats to bomb Iran, while Tehran also wants to avoid a looming Western ban on its oil exports.

UN nuclear chief: Deal reached with Iran over suspected weapons program

After discussions in Baghdad extended late into an unscheduled second day between envoys from Iran and the six powers, European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said it was clear both sides wanted progress and had some common ground, but significant differences remained.

"We will maintain intensive contacts with our Iranian counterparts to prepare a further meeting in Moscow," she told a news conference in Baghdad.

Ashton leads the negotiations for the six-country group made up of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council - Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States - which together with Germany is known as the P5+1.

The next meeting, the third in the latest round of talks that began in Istanbul last month, will be held in Moscow on June 18-19.

Ashton said the six powers wanted practical steps from Iran to address concerns over its nuclear work.

Chief among such concerns is Iran's ability to enrich uranium to a fissile purity of 20 percent. That is the nuclear advance most worrying to the West since it hurdles technical obstacles to reaching 90 percent, or bomb-grade, enrichment.

"Iran declared its readiness to address the issue of 20 percent enrichment and came with its own five point plan, including their assertion that we recognize their right to enrichment," Ashton added.

Iran insists on its rights
Iran says it will not exceed 20 percent and the material will be made into fuel for a research reactor.

"Talks were intensive and long," said Iranian chief negotiator Saeed Jalili. "They were detailed, but are left unfinished."

Mohammed Ameen / AP

Iraq's Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari walks with the EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton upon her arrival at Baghdad International Airport in Iraq, Wednesday, May 23, 2012.

"The atmosphere of these talks was positive for the two sides to talk about their issues in a clear way. We believe the result of these talks was that we were able to get to know each other's views better and more."

But enriching uranium, he said, was "an undeniable right of the Iranian nation".

Iran has hinted at flexibility on higher-grade enrichment but Iranian media said it would not give away its most potent bargaining chip without significant concessions on sanctions.

World powers, Iran trade proposals on possible nuclear deal

Jalili denied the P5+1 had offered a new package of proposals during the meeting: "They proposed one suggestion about the issue of uranium enrichment. We have said that any cooperation (in this area) would depend on the preservation of Iran's right to enrich uranium."

While there was little if any concrete progress, the fact that the two sides agreed to continue talks was a sign of progress in itself, after more than a year of not meeting at all before the latest round of negotiations began in April.

"The two sides' commitment to diplomacy in the absence of any clear agreement is a positive sign," said Ali Vaez, Iran expert at the International Crisis Group think-tank.

"All parties should be commended for returning to the negotiating table. Obama should be commended for having turned diplomacy into a process rather than the one-off meetings that existed in the past," wrote Trita Parsi, President of the Washington-based National Iranian American Council.

"Both sides entered negotiations with their maximalist positions, and neither budged," he said. "Looking ahead, now the hard work begins."

According to The Associated Press, a senior U.S. official said the pace of the talks would speed up in upcoming rounds.

"We are urgent about it, because every day we don't figure this out is a day they keep going forward with a nuclear program," said the U.S. official on condition of anonymity.

"We still think we have some time for diplomacy, but it's not indefinite."

The United States and its allies suspect Tehran is trying to develop a nuclear weapons capability and have imposed tough sanctions on Iran's energy and financial sectors to try to force it to compromise and open up its activities to scrutiny.

EU states are set to introduce a total embargo of Iranian crude oil purchases in July. Diplomats say that potentially persuasive measure will not be cancelled unless Tehran takes substantial steps to curb its nuclear activities.

Worries about war
The powers want Iran to send its stockpile of more highly refined uranium abroad and close an underground plant devoted to 20 percent enrichment and largely invulnerable to air strikes.

In return, the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany have offered fuel to keep Iran's medical isotope reactor running, assistance in nuclear safety and an end to an embargo on spare parts for Iran's aging civilian aircraft.

Rising tension over the past year has pushed global oil prices upward as the West has broadened sanctions to bar Iran's crude exports and the specter of Middle East war has increased with the threat of possible Israeli strikes on Iran's nuclear installations.

Israel is believed to be the only Middle East country with nuclear weapons but regards Iran's nuclear aspirations as a mortal threat given its calls for the demise of the Jewish state.

Iran, the world's No. 5 oil exporter, says it is enriching uranium only in order to generate electricity to serve the needs of a burgeoning population, and for a medical research reactor.

The Islamic Republic has repeatedly ruled out suspending all enrichment as called for by several U.N. Security Council resolutions, saying nuclear energy is a matter of national sovereignty and pride in technological progress.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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Iran President's Office via AP

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, center, visits the Natanz Uranium Enrichment Facility in Iran in this April 8, 2008 file photo.

Some 63 percent of Americans would be in favor of taking military action to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, according to a new survey.

The Pew Research Center asked 26,210 people in 21 different countries to give their views on Iran’s alleged plans to get nuclear weapons, finding widespread opposition to the idea in the West and also in some countries in the Mideast.

More than nine in 10 people in the United States, U.K., France and Germany were against Iran getting nuclear weapons. Two percent of Americans said they were in favor.

About 61 percent of Democrats and 79 percent of Republicans backed military force to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons, with 31 percent of Democrats and 15 percent of Republicans saying this should be accepted if it happens.

The survey found that 76 percent of Jordanians, 66 percent of Egyptians and 62 percent of Lebanese people were also against the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran.

Obama slams Iran's 'electric curtain' amid 'Israel loves Iran' internet campaign

Iran insists its nuclear program is purely for peaceful purposes, and says it has no intention of making weapons.

“In most countries, there is majority support among opponents of a nuclear-armed Iran for international economic sanctions to try to stop Tehran’s weapons program,” the Pew report laying out the findings, “A Global ‘No’ to a Nuclear-Armed Iran,”  reads.

“The Chinese and the Russians are notable dissenters in this regard. The poll also found majorities in Western Europe and the United States disposed to taking military action to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran. Again, the Russians and Chinese disagreed,” it added.

Leon Panetta seeks another $70M for Israel rocket shield

Slideshow: Everyday life in Iran

At schools, in shops, and on the streets of big cities and small towns, daily life plays out in Iran.

Launch slideshow

Some 77 percent of Russians were against a nuclear-armed Iran, but of those only 46 percent backed tougher sanctions and just 24 percent approved of military action. In China, 54 percent were opposed, and of those 38 percent backed more sanctions and 30 percent would support the use of force.

Roughly half of Washington’s European allies would support military action to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran, the survey found.

Iranians already feeling pain of sanctions

Some 50 percent of people in Pakistan were in favor of Iran acquiring nukes, compared to 11 per cent against, with a large number of people not expressing an opinion.

Iran hangs 'Israel spy' over nuclear scientist killing

Lebanon was split along religious lines, with 73 percent of Shiite Muslims, 31 percent of Christians and just 5 percent of Sunni Muslims in favor. Iran is overwhelmingly a Shiite country.

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68,000 guns recovered by Mexican authorities in the past five years have been traced back to the United States, authorities said Friday.

The flood of tens of thousands of weapons underscores complaints from Mexico that the U.S. is responsible for arming the drug cartels plaguing its southern neighbor. Six years of violence between warring cartels have killed more than 47,000 people in Mexico. 

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives released its latest data covering 2007 through 2011. According to ATF, many of the guns seized in Mexico and submitted to ATF for tracing were recovered at the scenes of cartel shootings while others were seized in raids on illegal arms caches. All the recovered weapons were suspected of being used in crimes in Mexico. 

At an April 2 North American summit in Washington, Mexican President Felipe Calderon said the U.S. government has not done enough to stop the flow of assault weapons and other guns from the U.S. to Mexico. 

Cross-border methamphetamine trade booms amid Mexico's 'war on drugs'

Calderon credited President Barack Obama with making an effort to reduce the gun traffic, but said Obama faces "internal problems ... from a political point of view." 

There is Republican opposition in Congress and broad opposition from Republicans and gun-rights advocates elsewhere to a new assault weapons ban or other curbs on gun sales. The Obama administration says it is working to tighten inspections of border checkpoints in the absence of an assault rifle ban that expired before Obama took office. 

For more than a year, ATF has been reeling from accusations that some of its agents in Arizona were ordered by superiors to step aside rather than intercept illicit loads of weapons headed for Mexico. 

The Justice Department's inspector general and Congress have been looking into the Arizona gun probe, Operation Fast and Furious. 

The issue of gun control legislation hasn't been part of the Republican-led probe of Fast and Furious by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. 

The number of all types of ATF-traced firearms manufactured in the U.S. or imported into the U.S. and later recovered in Mexico rose from 11,842 in 2007 to 14,504 in 2011, according to ATF. The figures for U.S.-sourced firearms were 21,035 in 2008; 14,376 for 2009; and 6,404 in 2010. Included in those totals, the number of rifles recovered in Mexico, submitted to ATF for tracing and found to have come from the U.S. rose from 4,885 in 2007 to 8,804 last year. 

One killed every half hour in Mexico drug-related violence

Mexican law enforcement officials report that certain types of rifles such as AK variants with detachable magazines are being used more frequently by drug trafficking organizations, ATF said in a news release. 

Mexico has provided ATF information on 99,691 guns. ATF determined that the source for 68,161 of the weapons was the U.S, 68 percent of the total. For the remainder, ATF was unable to determine a U.S. source or was unable to trace the request to a country of origin. The 68 percent figure is down from estimates of 90 percent in years past when Mexico was sharing less information with the U.S. 

During the Obama administration, ATF has undergone a management shake-up and Attorney General Eric Holder has called Fast and Furious a flawed operation that must never be repeated. 

Sen. Chuck Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said that thorough gun statistics are hard to come by and tricky to interpret. 

"The only guns Mexico is going to submit for tracing are guns they know are from the United States, which clearly paints an incomplete picture of the firearms found in the country," Grassley said. 

 In the Obama administration's efforts to slow the illicit trafficking, gun store owners in Southwestern border states are suing to overturn a requirement that they report to ATF when customers buy multiple high-powered rifles within a consecutive five-day period. To date, the program has been upheld in one federal court. ATF says the reporting requirement, imposed six months ago, has led to 100 criminal investigations and the referral of 30 cases for prosecution involving 100 alleged gun trafficker defendants.

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John Stillwell / PA via AP, file

Abu Hamza, who can now be lawfully extradited to the United States to face terror charges, along with five others.

A radical Muslim preacher can be lawfully extradited from Britain to the United States to face charges that he helped set up an al-Qaida terrorist training camp in Oregon, a court in Europe ruled Tuesday.

Abu Hamza, whose amputated forearms are replaced by hooks, is accused of conspiring to establish a training camp in Bly, Ore., where followers received combat and weapons training for violent jihad, or holy war, in Afghanistan.

The U.S. also believes he helped the extremists who kidnapped 16 foreign tourists in Yemen in 1998. Three British tourists and one Australian visitor were killed in a shootout between Yemeni security forces and the captors.

His extradition –and that of five others on similar charges – has been on hold since 2008 while European judges considered whether conditions at the high-security ADX Florence prison in Colorado would constitute a breach of human rights, making extradition unlawful.

Al-Qaida's top man in Europe freed from British jail

Based on charges filed in the U.S., the suspects could get lifelong jail terms without parole in maximum security conditions, such as with concrete furniture, timed showers, tiny cell windows and no outside communications.

The European Court of Human Rights, based in Strasbourg, France, finally ruled Tuesday that five of the six would not be subject to "ill-treatment" at ADX Florence. The court put off its decision on a sixth accused, Haroon Rashid Aswat, as it awaits further information, including details about his mental health.

The other five may now be legally extradited, although the court said procedures should not start until a possible appeals process is completed.

Britain’s home secretary, Theresa May, told NBC News efforts to extradite the five to the U.S. would begin “as soon as possible” after the appeals window has passed.

“These are individuals who have been accused of some very serious offenses, it is right that they stand trial, I believe it is right that we were able to extradite them," she said.

Lord Carlile, a Liberal Democrat party lawmaker and lawyer with expertise in anti-terror legislation, told NBC News Tuesday's ECHR ruling was “entirely sensible”.

He said: “It's a great shame it has taken so long for the European Court of Human Rights to produce it, at the best part for two years.

“If I sit in London and commit an offense on the internet in the United States, which affects allegedly American national security and safety of American citizens, in my view it would be entirely reasonable for me to be tried in the United States.”

Egypt-born Hamza, also known Mustafa Kamal Mustafa, is already serving a seven-year sentence in Britain for soliciting to murder and inciting racial hatred.

His case had become the focus of growing concern that the European court could over-rule Britain’s attempts to extradite him, potentially compromising national security.

He came to the UK to study in the early 1980s, meeting and marrying an English woman, Valerie Fleming, and receiving British citizenship - although the couple are divorced.

His forearms were amputated after he was injured in Afghanistan, although the exact circumstances have never been clear, according to previous BBC reports. The cause of the accident that led to his disability was not discussed in Tuesday's court ruling.

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LONDON - Britain pledged $800,000 in support of Syrian opposition groups Thursday, three days ahead of a 70-nation summit that will seek to unify those against the regime of President Bashar Assad.

In a statement on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office website, William Hague, Britain’s foreign secretary, said the “non-lethal” assistance would help the groups “develop themselves as a credible alternative to Assad and his regime."

The United States is still deciding what sort of support to provide, but is expected to make a similar pledge at the Friends of Syria conference in Istanbul, Turkey on Sunday.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will use the summit to pressure the country's divided opposition to unite. Without that step, there is little chance Assad's opponents can oust him without a military intervention the West clearly does not want.

Global action on Assad to step down has been largely limited so far to diplomatic and economic pressure, a stark contrast to the NATO air campaign that former Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi faced in a similar uprising last year.

There is also disunity among Arab nations about what action to take. At the Arab League meeting in Baghdad on Thursday, leaders dropped a demand that Assad step down but urged him to act quickly on a U.N.-backed peace plan he has accepted.

Syria's opposition groups continue to demand that Assad must go and have not agreed to peace talks.

Fewer than half of the 22 Arab League heads of state are attending the summit, which is perhaps an indication of Sunni and Shiite tension in the region since the beginning of the Arab Spring.

President Barack Obama discussed providing medical supplies and communications support to the Syrian opposition with Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan this week.

The United States may back further "non-lethal" aid for the opposition at the Istanbul meeting. But as is the case in Britain, there was no talk of arming the rebel military forces such as the Free Syria Army.

A spokesman for the U.S. Department of State told msnbc.com there had been no change to its current position of exploring options.

"The United States has been trying to find a responsible way to help, using sanctions and ‘moral support,'" said Joe Holliday, a security expert at the Institute for the Study of War.

"But it has been a balance between restraint and achieving the outcome it wants, getting Assad to go," he said.

Britain has already given $715,000 worth of non-military practical support, including communications assistance and training and advice to Syrian human rights defenders.

Assad faces mounting pressure from the West, from fellow Arab nations and even from staunch ally Russia. The United Nations says over 9,000 people have died since the Syrian uprising began last year.

A report in the New York Times said refugees fleeing Syria have described an alarming rise in sectarian conflict in the country, with Sunni Muslims claiming to have been shot at by neighbors who are members President Assad’s minority Alawite sect.

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WASHINGTON -- North Korea has added sophisticated cyber attack capabilities to its arsenal of threatening weapons and this year is rife with opportunities for military provocations from Pyongyang, senior U.S. defense officials said on Wednesday.

The officials told the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee that North Korea's large conventional military, nuclear weapons programs, ballistic missiles and newer capabilities in cyber warfare were all threats to the United States and its allies in the Asia-Pacific region.

Army Gen. James Thurman, the commander of U.S. Forces Korea, told the panel that a skilled team of hackers was the newest addition to North Korea's arsenal of weapons that also includes chemical and biological weapons.

"Such attacks are ideal for North Korea, providing the regime a means to attack South Korean and U.S. interests without attribution, and have been increasingly employed against a variety of targets including military, governmental, educational and commercial institutions," he said in prepared comments.

Thurman, who leads the 28,000 U.S. troops in South Korea, told the panel that the power transfer following the death in December of leader Kim Jong Il "appears to be proceeding without discernible internal challenges and with significant Chinese political and economic support."

Kim's untested son, Kim Jong Un, estimated to be 28 years old, has eased into power surrounded by allies of his father with so far "no indications the regime will depart significantly from Kim Jong Il's policies," said Thurman.

Peter Lavoy, acting assistant secretary of defense for Asia and Pacific Security Affairs, told the panel the potential for provocations from North Korea in 2012 was a "major concern" of the Pentagon.

From the U.S. perspective, the first provocation will be a North Korean ballistic missile launch slated for between April 12-16. But South Korean elections in April and December might also tempt Pyongyang to take actions to influence Seoul's domestic politics, he said.

Pyongyang says the rocket to be launched to mark what would have been the 100th birthday of deceased state founder Kim Il Sung will carry a weather satellite into orbit. But most outsiders say it is a disguised test of a long-range missile that violates key U.N. Security Council resolutions that ban any such launches.

Food aid suspended
"This planned launch is highly provocative because it manifests North Korea's desire to test and expand its long-range missile capability," said Lavoy. He said the announcement of the launch also broke a missile moratorium North Korea agreed to on Feb. 29 with Washington in exchange for food aid.

According to the BBC, Lavoy said next month's planned rocket launch "reflects [North Korea's] lack of desire to follow through on their international commitments and so we've been forced to suspend our activities to provide nutritional assistance."

The US has not delivered food aid to North Korea since 2009, BBC reported, but it sent officials to the country's ally China earlier this month to finalize plans for renewed food deliveries totaling 240,000 tons.

North Korea relies on foreign aid to feed its people, BBC reported. The country has been struggling with food shortages since a famine in the 1990s.

Many of North Korea's neighbors are concerned about next month's launch of a rocket, which North Korea has said would travel southward toward the Philippines or Indonesia, said Lavoy.

"I don't know if we have any confidence on the stability of the missile or what the impact will be," he said.

The missile launch next month has put on hold diplomatic efforts to coax North Korea back into talks over its nuclear weapons programs that have been frozen for three years.

Pyongyang often shifts tactics between diplomacy and confrontation, said Thurman.

"History tells us that Pyongyang will shift from diplomatic to provocative behavior when conventional diplomacy has run its course and the North Korean leadership perceives coercive diplomacy offers a better chance to realize its objectives," he said.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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