U.S. SUSTAINS BLOW WITH DEATH OF SHI'ITE CLERIC

WASHINGTON [MENL] -- The U.S.-led coalition has sustained a major blow inefforts to win cooperation for the establishment of a pro-Western regime inIraq. U.S. officials and Western intelligence sources said the assassinationof a leading pro-U.S. Iraqi Shi'ite cleric in the southern city of Najafrobbed the coalition of a spiritual leader who could have won support for aWestern-style regime in wake of the fall of Saddam Hussein. Abdul Majid Al Khoei was killed by supporters of an Iranian-backed rival on Thursday a weekafter he had returned to Najaf from exile in London.