World IN BRIEF : LEBANON : Free All Hostages, Muslim Cleric Asks

Lebanon’s most influential Shiite Muslim cleric urged the release of all Western hostages on humanitarian grounds, his second such appeal in three days. “We have to work for closing the file on the hostages and those unjustifiably detained, be they Iranians, Americans, Europeans or Lebanese,” Sheik Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah said in Beirut. Fadlallah is the spiritual guide of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, or Party of God, the umbrella organization for underground Shiite factions believed to hold most of the 11 Westerners in Lebanon, including six Americans.