A boat carrying some 500 refugees from Libya ran aground as it neared an Italian port on Sunday, forcing many of those on board to jump into the sea, officials said after all were successfully rescued.

The boat hit some rocks on the approach to the island of Lampedusa in southern Italy, sparking panic among those on board -- most of them migrant workers from sub-Saharan Africa and Asia who had been living in Libya.

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 Taliban unleashed a wave of attacks including six suicide bombings on government targets in the major southern Afghan city of Kandahar Saturday, leaving at least 14 people wounded.

Militants with guns and rocket-propelled grenades launched an assault on the governor's office, and ten explosions including six suicide blasts rocked the city -- the birthplace of the Taliban -- after the attacks began at about 1:00 pm (0930 GMT).

A plane with around 25 passengers and crew crashed into the sea during a downpour Saturday in eastern Indonesia, killing everyone on board, a navy officer told local radio.

"I can confirm that all the passengers were killed when the plane exploded as it crashed into the sea," a navy officer involved in the search told ElShinta radio.

The Turkish army killed two Kurdish rebels in clashes early Saturday in the mountainous Mardin region, a local security official said.

The clashes with rebels from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) took place not far from Bagok Mountain in southeastern Turkey, the official said.

Former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf has slammed the United States for violating Islamabad's sovereignty in carrying carry out the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, a media report said Saturday.

The former military strongman told the expatriate Pakistan community in Dubai that all "peace loving people" should be happy that bin Laden was killed, but no Pakistani accepted the violation of their sovereignty.

The United States warned Friday it would take "additional steps" against Syria if it continues a brutal crackdown on protesters, a week after imposing tough sanctions on the Arab nation.

"The United States believes that Syria's deplorable actions toward its people warrant a strong international response," the White House said in one of its strongest statements yet since the outbreak of unrest there.

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.

U.S. drones fired a salvo of missiles into a compound in Pakistan's tribal district of North Waziristan on Friday, killing eight suspected militants including al-Qaida members, officials said.

The attack came just four days after U.S. Special Forces commandos shot dead al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden in the garrison city of Abbottabad, hundreds of kilometers from the tribal belt and just two hours' drive from the capital.

Japan's Prime Minister Naoto Kan said on Friday he had ordered the shutdown of a nuclear power plant southwest of Tokyo because it is located close to a dangerous tectonic faultline, Agence France Presse reported.

The news comes eight weeks after a massive quake and tsunami damaged the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant northeast of Tokyo, sparking the world's worst atomic crisis since Chernobyl a quarter-century ago.