The U.S. administration has won congressional approval to devote $8 million to helping Libya develop a commando force to fight extremist groups, the New York Times reported Tuesday.

The funds would be shifted from Pentagon operations in Pakistan to help Libya develop a force to counter increasingly powerful Islamist militants, like those who attacked the U.S. consulate last month killing four Americans.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Monday she takes the blame for any shortcomings in the handling of an attack last month on the U.S. mission in the Libyan city of Benghazi.

"I take responsibility," she said, according to the news networks CNN and Fox, which interviewed her during a visit to the Peruvian capital Lima.

Israel's parliament voted Tuesday to dissolve itself and hold early elections on January 22, a move championed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu whose coalition is leading in the opinion polls.

The dissolution of the Knesset was approved by 100 votes to none in a third reading after a lengthy session in the 120-seat chamber.

The United States on Monday called on all Syria's neighbors to keep a careful watch over their airspace, after Turkey said it had intercepted a Syrian plane from Russia carrying military equipment.

"Certainly we support the decision that Turkey has made in light of the apparent violation of their airspace by this aircraft," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said Tuesday that Germany is "ready in principle" to host Syrians who have fled the civil war there, but added that it must be done under an international framework.

"Germany is ready in principle to welcome Syrian refugees," he told regional newspaper Rheinische Post.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan reiterated Monday that the cargo Ankara confiscated from an intercepted Syrian plane contained weapons, shrugging off Russian claims that the plane carried legal radar equipment.

"It is beyond any doubt that the cargo is war equipment," Erdogan told reporters in Ankara.

A Ukrainian journalist who worked for a Russian television crew and reportedly expressed support for Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime has been kidnapped by rebels, the Ukrainian authorities said on Monday.

"A journalist, a Ukrainian national who worked for Russian television channels, has gone missing in Syria," President Viktor Yanukovych said in a statement.

More than two million voters have registered for Jordan's parliamentary elections due to take place by the end of 2012, the independent electoral commission announced on Monday.

"2.27 million voters registered... or 70 percent of the electorate, by the close of registration," commission spokesman Hussein Abu Hani told Agence France Presse.

About 120 prisoners escaped from a jail in Tripoli on Monday, National Guard chief Khaled al-Sharif told Agence France Presse, adding that Libyan security services were on high alert to catch them.

"About 120 common criminals escaped from al-Jadaida prison today. Security services are on high alert to catch them," Sharif said. "We are trying to hunt them down and some have already been arrested."

A Yemeni intelligence officer died of his wounds on Monday from an attack in the southeast of the country blamed on al-Qaida, a hospital source said.

"Lieutenant Colonel Salah Badhriss has died of his injuries," the source at Seyun hospital in Hadramawt province said, adding that he had been shot three times in the chest.