Kenya has tightened security around the home of U.S. President Barack Obama's step-grandmother after the killing of Osama bin Laden, an official said Thursday.

"In the wake of security challenges including terror threats, I can confirm that we decided to enhance security at the home of Mama Sarah ...," said regional administrator Francis Mutie, using the popular name for Obama's step-grandmother who lives in western Kenya.

Pakistan's prime minister on Monday dismissed as "absurd" accusations that al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden must have benefited from official complicity or incompetence to hide out in his country.

Addressing parliament in his first comments since bin Laden was killed by U.S. Navy SEALs a week ago less than a mile from a top military academy, Yousuf Raza Gilani promised an investigation, to be led by a top Pakistani general.

The U.S. embassy hosted a group of 300 Lebanese boys and girls from the Bekaa valley for a day of basketball, festival games and music at the Saint Coeurs School in downtown Zahle, an embassy statement said.

The students competed in a medley of basketball events to demonstrate the fundamental skills that they have developed through the embassy’s 2010-11 Sports United Youth Basketball Program.

Osama bin Laden had a "support network" in Pakistan but it is not clear if the Pakistani government was involved, U.S. President Barack Obama said in his first public comments on the issue.

The fact that bin Laden turned up in leafy Abbottabad, home to the Pakistani equivalent of the West Point and Sandhurst military academies, just two hours' drive north of Islamabad, has been greeted with incredulity.

From a shabby, makeshift office, he ran a global terrorist empire. The world's most wanted man watched newscasts of himself from a tiny television perched atop a rickety old desk cluttered with wires.

For years, the world only saw the 54-year-old Osama bin Laden in the rare propaganda videos that trickled out, the ones portraying him as a charismatic religious figure unfazed by being the target of a worldwide manhunt.

The al-Qaida terror network confirmed the death of its leader Osama bin Laden Friday and swore revenge for his killing by elite U.S. commandos, the SITE monitoring group reported.

In a statement posted on jihadist Internet forums, the Islamist group behind the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States said it would release an audio tape made by its Saudi-born founder a week before his death.

Pakistan's military on Thursday demanded the U.S. cut its troop presence in the country to a "minimum" as the fallout from the killing of al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden intensified.

After days of questions in Washington over how bin Laden could find shelter in the town of Abbottabad, army chief of staff General Ashfaq Kayani threatened to "review" cooperation with the U.S. in the event of another similar raid.

The United States and Italy called for an immediate end to the crackdown in Syria on Thursday and warned about the rising influence of Iran amid the multiple crises shaking the Arab world, Agence France Presse reported.

"The Syrian government must immediately stop the violence and resume a path of dialogue with those who want reform," Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said at a joint news conference with Clinton in Rome.

U.S. Special Middle East Peace Envoy's assistant, Frederick Hoff, paid a two-day visit to Beirut earlier this week, revealed a political source to Akhbar al-Yawm on Wednesday.

A source from the U.S. Embassy told the news agency that his visit was aimed at discussing the implementation of United Nations Security Council resolution 1701.

Al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden was unarmed when he was shot dead by U.S. special forces, but he tried to resist and there was a "volatile firefight," the White House said Tuesday.

The revelation, likely to stoke anger in parts of the Muslim world, came from President Barack Obama's spokesman Jay Carney as he provided the most detailed account yet of the Sunday night raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan.