Pakistani Taliban selects new leader

THE Pakistani Taliban has selected Khan Said Sajna as the insurgent group's new leader after Hakimullah Mehsud was killed in a US drone strike, members of the organisation say.

Sajna is from a group within the Pakistani Taliban that was in favour of peace talks with the government.

He was a close associate of Baitullah Mehsud, the founder and former leader of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), who was also killed by a drone in 2009.

A Taliban council picked the Mehsud tribesman as the new chief at a meeting at an undisclosed location in the tribal region on Saturday.

Hakimullah Mehsud was killed on Friday, one day before the government and the TTP were about to open peace talks after a decade of conflict.

Information Minister Pervaiz Rashid said the government would not cease its efforts to seek a peace deal with the militants despite the US attack.

"We had removed all hurdles in opening dialogue with the Taliban, and we will still try to build on that," Rashid said.

It was not immediately known whether the Taliban was also interested in initiating a process of reconciliation.

A militant commander in the northwestern town of Dera Ismail Khan said it was too early to say if the militia would still respond to government overtures.

Analysts said the future of the TTP and the proposed peace talks depend upon how well the new leader keeps the militia united.

"If the organisation splits into many groups, it will not be easy for the government to deal with each one of them," said Irfan Shehzad, lead researcher at an Islamabad-based think tank, the Institute of Policy Studies.

Pakistan's government declared a red alert overnight after Hakimullah Mehsud's killing out of fear of retaliatory attacks.

It ordered increased security around airports and other key installations.

The army was deployed on Saturday in all major cities near tribal areas after intelligence agencies warned that the TTP might launch improvised attacks to avenge the killing of their leader.

Hakimullah Mehsud was buried on Saturday, an official said.

He and four other militants were killed when an unmanned aircraft fired four missiles at a compound in the Dande Darpa Khel area of the North Waziristan tribal district near the Afghan border.

A security official said the dead rebel leader and his associates were buried in different areas of the tribal region but declined to give the exact locations.

Hakimullah Mehsud headed the banned TTP, a group of more than a dozen rebel outfits, since 2009. He succeeded Baitullah Mehsud.

Sajna hails from the Laddah area of the South Waziristan tribal district.

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Bahrain opposition leader faces prosecutor

BAHRAIN'S main opposition group says its leader has been called to the state prosecutor's office over an exhibition that showed alleged abuses against anti-government protesters.

It's unclear whether Ali Salman, the head of the Shi'ite bloc al-Wefaq, could face arrest on Sunday.

Such a move could boost tensions sharply and open wider clashes between Shi'ite-led protesters and Bahrain's Sunni rulers.

Riot police last week raided the museum-style hall opened by al-Wefaq that included depictions of alleged torture and heavy-handed tactics against protesters during 32 months of unrest.

Authorities said the displays incited "hatred".

Al-Wefaq said on Saturday that Salman was ordered to the prosecutor's office, but gave no other details.

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In midst of Syria war, Jesus statue arises

IN the midst of a conflict rife with sectarianism, a giant bronze statue of Jesus has gone up on a Syrian mountain, apparently under cover of a truce among three warring factions.

Jesus stands, arms outstretched, on the Cherubim mountain, overlooking a route pilgrims took from Constantinople to Jerusalem in ancient times.

The statue is 12.3 metres tall and stands on a base that brings its height to 32m, organisers of the project estimate.

That the statue made it to Syria and went up without incident on October 14 is remarkable.

The project took eight years and was set back by the conflict that followed the March 2011 uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.

Christians and other minorities are all targets in the conflict, and the statue's safety is by no means guaranteed.

It stands among villages where some fighters have little sympathy for Christians.

So why put up a giant statue of Christ in the midst of such setbacks and so much danger?

Because "Jesus would have done it," organiser Samir al-Ghadban quoted a Christian church leader as telling him.

The backers' success in overcoming the obstacles shows the complexity of war, where sometimes despite the atrocities the warring parties can reach short-term truces.

Al-Ghadban said that the main armed groups in the area - Syrian government forces, rebels and the local militias of Sednaya, the Christian town near the statue site - halted fire while organisers set up the statue, without providing further details.

Rebels and government forces occasionally agree to ceasefires to allow the movement of goods.

They typically do not admit to having truces because that would tacitly acknowledge their enemies.

It took three days to raise the statue.

Photos provided by organisers show it being hauled in two pieces by farm tractors, then lifted into place by a crane.

Smaller statues of Adam and Eve stand nearby.

The project, called I Have Come to Save the World, is run by the London-based St Paul and St George Foundation, which al-Ghadban directs.

It was previously named the Gavrilov Foundation, after a Russian businessman, Yuri Gavrilov.

Documents filed with Britain's Charity Commission describe it as supporting "deserving projects in the field of science and animal welfare" in England and Russia, but the commission's accounts show it spent less than STG250 ($A426) in the last four years.

Al-Ghadban said most of the financing came from private donors, but did not supply further details.

Russians have been a driving force behind the project - not surprising given that the Kremlin is embattled Assad's chief ally, and the Orthodox churches in Russia and Syria have close ties.

Al-Ghadban, who spoke from Moscow, is Syrian-Russian and lives in both countries.

Al-Ghadban said he began the project in 2005, hoping the statue would be an inspiration for Syria's Christians.

He said he was inspired by Rio de Janeiro's towering Christ the Redeemer statue.

He commissioned an Armenian sculptor, but progress was slow.

By 2012, the statue was ready, but Syria was aflame, causing the project's biggest delay, al-Ghadban said.

Majority Sunni Muslims dominate the revolt, and jihadists make up some of the strongest fighting groups.

Other Muslim groups along with the 10-per cent Christian minority have stood largely with Assad's government, or remained neutral, sometimes arming themselves to keep hardline rebels out of their communities.

Churches have been vandalised and priests abducted.

Last month the extremists overran Maaloula, a Christian-majority town so old that some of its people still speak a language from Jesus' time.

On Tuesday a militant Muslim cleric, Sheik Omar al-Gharba, posted a YouTube video of himself smashing a blue-and-white statue of the Virgin Mary.

Al-Ghadban and the project's most important backer, Gavrilov, weighed cancelling it.

They consulted Syria's Greek Orthodox Patriarch John Yaziji.

It was he who told them "Jesus would have done it".

They began shipping the statue from Armenia to Lebanon.

In August, while it was en route, Gavrilov, 49, suffered a fatal heart attack, al-Ghadban said.

Eventually the statue reached Syria.

"It was a miracle," al-Ghadban said.

"Nobody who participated in this expected this to succeed."

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Iran editor jailed for religious article

THE editor of an Iranian reformist newspaper has been jailed for publishing an article on Shia Islam deemed offensive by authorities.

The ISNA news agency said Saeed Pourazizi of the Bahar newspaper was taken to Evin prison on Saturday.

ISNA quoted Pourazizi's wife, Masoumeh Shahriari, as saying her husband was summoned to court but was taken to jail instead.

She said authorities have demanded bail in exchange for his release.

Iran's press watchdog banned Bahar last week because of an article authorities said questioned Shia Islam's beliefs about the Prophet Mohammed's appointed successor

Prior to the ban, the daily issued an apology, saying publishing the article was an "unintentional mistake" and it had temporarily suspended activities to "ease the tensions".

Culture Minister Ali Janati said the article "foments religious conflicts" and that the daily had received earlier warnings.

And judiciary chief Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani warned on Wednesday that his department will "act with determination against those who falsify the history and try to undermine the fundamentals of the regime".

Iran's new president Hassan Rouhani, who has the support of reformists and moderates, pledged to work for more social freedom during his election campaign.

Several reformist journalists and political activists in the predominantly Shi'ite country have been released since he took office in August.

Bahar and several other reformist dailies, notably Shargh, only resumed publication at the end of 2012 after a ban lasting several years.

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