US Air Force base locked down over 'suspicious individual'

A U.S. Air Force base in Arkansas was briefly placed on lockdown Wednesday because of a "suspicious individual," the base said in a statement.

Little Rock Air Force Base in Jacksonville, Arkansas was locked down on Wednesday noon after officials received reports of a potential danger. The base said the lockdown was "in the interest of protecting all base members and resources from a suspicious individual."

The statement did not detail the individual concerned. Nor did it specify how or where the individual was spotted.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported the base had been scheduled to undergo emergency response exercise Tuesday and Wednesday. A base spokesman told reporters that officials had been in training mode when a "real world" situation prompted the lockdown.

Later in the day, the base said in an updated release that the four-hour lockdown has been lifted. "After a thorough search of the base, we found the report no longer credible," the release said.

The military base, located 27 km northeast of Arkansas' capital city Little Rock, is the home of the 19th Airlift Wing. The wing provides the U.S. Department of Defense the largest C-130 Hercules transport fleet in the world.