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The father of a Chechen immigrant shot dead by U.S. law enforcement agents while being questioned about his ties to a Boston Marathon bombings suspect said Thursday that he regrets allowing his son to go to the United States. Ibragim Todashev, 27, was a mixed martial arts fighter who had trained with Tamerlan Tsarnaev in Boston, and his father said they had bonded because of their shared interests and heritage as Chechens from southern Russia. Tsarnaev, 26, was killed in a shootout with police days after the April 15 terrorist attack. Todashev was killed Wednesday after an altercation with an FBI agent during a meeting with the agent and two Massachusetts state troopers at his home in central Florida. Abdul-Baki Todashev told The Associated Press that his son — the second of 12 children — was at university he got an opportunity to go to the United States to study English when about five or six years ago. He said he later agreed to his son's request to remain in the U.S. "because it seemed like the safest country." Chechnya has been ravaged by two wars between separatist fighters and Russian federal troops since 1994, and remains troubled by periodic outbreaks of violence. The family's red-brick house on the outskirts of Grozny, the Chechen capital, still bears the marks of shrapnel. The elder Todashev said his son gave up martial arts because of an injury and later held a number of jobs, including as a driver at a retirement home, before moving to Florida within the last year. His father said his son had planned to come to Chechnya this week to visit his extended family, but was asked by the FBI to delay his trip. The FBI gave no details on why it was interested in Ibragim Todashev except to say that he was being questioned as part of the Boston investigation. However, two officials briefed on the investigation said he had implicated himself as having been involved in a 2011 triple-slaying in a Boston suburb; investigators now suspect that Tsarnaev may have been involved in the unsolved crime. Abdul-Baki Todashev said he was worried that with his son was dead, the FBI could pin any crime on him. "Out of fear of the lawlessness in Chechnya, I sent him to the U.S., because it seemed like the safest country at the time," the distraught father said. "Now I'm thinking about how to bring home his body. As it turns out I sent him to his death."

Iraqi officials say gunmen have shot dead four soldiers at an army checkpoint north of Baghdad. Two police officers say four others were wounded in the Thursday morning attack in the town of Taji. The militants fled the area after a brief clash without suffering casualties. A health official confirmed the casualty figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to release information. Taji is a former insurgent stronghold, located about 12 miles (20 kilometers) north of the Iraqi capital. The attack followed a spike in violence last week that left nearly 300 people killed. Alarmed by a nationwide deterioration in the security situation, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered a reshuffle in senior military ranks.

A former prime minister whose party won Bulgaria's May 12 election says his party doesn't have enough seats in parliament to form a stable government. Boiko Borisov made that decision Thursday, saying his center-right GERB party only has 97 of parliament's 240 seats, and that isn't enough to succeed. That means President Rosen Plevneliev is now expected to ask the Socialists, who finished second in the election with 84 seats, to take on that role. The Socialists have said they will try to form a Cabinet of technocrats with wide support, led by a former nonpartisan finance minister, Plamen Oresharski. Borisov resigned as prime minister in February amid sometimes violent protests against widespread poverty and corruption in Bulgaria.

Scotland Yard confirms the victim of bloody assault was a soldier.

The final outcome of the coroner's inquest determining the cause of death will not be able to be appealed.