Al Jazeera has aired footage of armed Westerners on the front line with Libyan rebels near the city of Misurata. The Guardian newspaper reports the video is the first apparent confirmation that foreign special ground forces are playing an active role in the Libyan conflict. The Western troop presence may be in defiance of the U.N. security resolution approved in March that specifically excludes “a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory.” In related news, eight senior Libyan military officers appeared in Rome Monday to announce that they had defected from Col. Muammar Gaddafi’s forces.