In the World

KABUL, Afghanistan - Iranian border guards killed 10 Afghan migrants and wounded eight others when hundreds tried to illegally cross into Iran in search of work, Afghanistan's Interior Ministry said Sunday. Iran denied that.

Details of the incident Friday in Afghanistan's northwestern Farah province have been sketchy and often contradictory. An Interior Ministry statement said 300 Afghan laborers tried to cross into Iran illegally, looking for work. Iranian border guards opened fire, killing 10, it said.

Iran's chief of border guards, Gen. Hamid Sharafi, denied there was any shooting at Afghan migrants, according to Iran's semi-official ISNA news agency. - AP

BAGHDAD - Gunfire attacks in Iraq on Sunday killed five people, including a provincial official in a southern city.

Violence has been on the rise following a deadly security crackdown on a Sunni protest camp in northern Iraq. The bloodshed has raised fears that the country could be heading for a new wave of sectarian fighting.

In Mishahda, 20 miles north of the capital, gunmen in a speeding car opened fire on an outdoor market, killing three civilians and wounding three others. Police said drive-by shooters killed a police officer driving in the Baghdad neighborhood of Shaab. And in the southern oil hub of Basra, police said, gunmen shot and killed Ali Hussein, a Sunni member of the Basra Provincial Council, as he was leaving a mosque. - AP

JERUSALEM - Officials close to Israel's prime minister says he will use alternate sleeping arrangements when traveling after receiving a sky-high bill for installing a customized bed on a recent flight to London.

Channel 10 TV said Netanyahu spent $127,000 in public funds during a five-hour flight to attend Margaret Thatcher's funeral.

Netanyahu's office initially defended the decision, saying the prime minister had a busy schedule ahead of the flight and needed to be fresh for important meetings in Britain. But following a public uproar, officials close to Netanyahu said he had been unaware of the cost, and once informed, he ordered the bed be canceled on all future flights. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. - AP

Bulgaria's center-right party and its main challenger, the Socialists, finished first and second in Sunday's parliamentary election, with neither winning a majority needed to form a government, exit polls indicated. If confirmed, that could mean more political and economic instability in the financially strapped Balkan nation.