LEADING MUSLIM CLERIC KILLED IN BEIRUT

Nizar Halaby died in a fusillade of bullets outside his home in Beirut this morning, and Lebanon may be closer to rekindled civil war because of it. Beirut bureau chief Lara Marlowe reports that Halaby, a leader of the influential Habashi, a fundamentalist Sunni Muslim sect, "was thought to be the person most likely to become the next musti -- or highest religious leader -- of the Sunnis." The killing, by unknown assassins, is a setback for Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, whose government has been trying to shed the terrorist image Lebanon acquired during the 1975-1990 civil war. "It is a very serious development, but I don't see a new civil war coming out of it," says Marlowe." There is not that kind of instability now, thanks to about 20,000 Syrian troops on the streets."