Osama bin Laden was shot in the head as he peered out of a door and then pumped with bullets as he convulsed on the floor, according to a book by a member of the U.S. commando team that killed him.

The Navy SEAL team member's version of the al-Qaida chief's death differs from previous accounts offered by President Barack Obama's administration and will fuel a debate on the handling of state secrets in the wake of the killing.

Ecuador's president fears Julian Assange would not get a fair trial in the United States and has insisted that Britain and Sweden guarantee they will not extradite the WikiLeaks founder.

Assange took shelter in Ecuador's London embassy after exhausting all appeals against his extradition to Sweden for questioning on sex crime allegations, and Quito later granted him asylum, sparking a diplomatic row.

Thirteen people suspected of having links to al-Qaida were arrested in northwest Turkey following the discovery of explosives, the local governor said Thursday.

Police seized 90 kilograms (198 pounds) of ammonium nitrate, which can be used to make bombs, in a house raid in Karamursel, Kocaeli province, Governor Ercan Topaca was quoted as saying by Anatolia news agency.

Nine Indian air force personnel were killed on Thursday when two Russian-designed military helicopters apparently collided in mid-air, the military and police said.

Air force spokesman Wing Commander Gerard Galway said the two Mi-17 helicopters were "flying in close formation" over a firing range in the western state of Gujarat when they crashed.

Iran's embassy in Bulgaria accused Israel on Thursday of trying to discredit Tehran and hurt bilateral relations with Sofia, with comments that Iran was behind a recent deadly attack on Israeli tourists.

In a statement, the embassy accused Israel of "abuse... aimed at compromising the Islamic Republic of Iran and creating problems in the historic and friendly ties" between Bulgaria and Iran.

South Korea on Thursday formally rejected Japan's proposal that the two countries ask an international court to settle a bitter row over disputed islands, labeling Tokyo's stance "wrong".

South Korea last week received a "note verbale" -- an unsigned diplomatic missive -- from Japan suggesting that both sides jointly refer the dispute to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for settlement.

ran has doubled its capacity at a tough-to-bomb nuclear facility, a U.N. atomic agency report showed Thursday, as Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told a summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in Tehran that his country "is never seeking nuclear weapons."

The International Atomic Energy Agency also said that its ability to inspect the Parchin military base where it suspects nuclear weapons research took place in the past had been "significantly hampered" by a suspected clean-up.

Unidentified gunmen shot dead a Shiite Muslim judge along with his driver and police bodyguard in southwestern Pakistan on Thursday in a suspected sectarian attack, police said.

The incident took place in Quetta, the capital of the oil and gas rich province of Baluchistan, as Zulfiqar Naqvi was travelling to his office.

Five Australian troops have been killed in two separate incidents in Afghanistan, defense officials said Thursday, in the worst day for Australian casualties since the war started.

The incidents, which included three deaths in an "insider attack" by an Afghan solider, bring to 38 the number of Australian lives lost in the war.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told Iran's supreme leader and president on Wednesday that "concrete" progress is needed to end the showdown over their country's nuclear drive, a U.N. spokesman said.

Ban also had a tough message for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on human rights, their caustic comments on Israel and Iran's involvement in the Syrian civil war, U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky told U.N. correspondents from Tehran.