Bethlehem sees record pilgrim crowd for Christmas

Bethlehem: A record number of pilgrims from around the world have gathered in Bethlehem on Christmas Day in the largest celebration this West Bank town has seen in a decade.

Pilgrims were assembling around the Church of the Nativity, built on the site where tradition holds Jesus was born, for prayers on Saturday morning.

Christmas celebrations around the world
UAE residents share unique ways of celebrating Christmas
Attacks mar Christmas celebrations in parts of the world

The Israeli military put the number of pilgrims this year at over 100,000, compared to about 50,000 last year.

Warm weather, a virtual halt in Israeli-Palestinian violence and an economic revival in the West Bank have added to the holiday cheer.

One-third of Bethlehem's 50,000 residents are Christian, down from about 75 percent in the 1950s. The rest are Muslims.

Attacks mar celebrations

Fresh attacks against Christians marred Christmas Day on Saturday as church leaders condemned religious persecution and called for peace and reconciliation.

As Christian leaders highlighted the plight of believers facing the threat of attacks around the world, a bomb in a church during Christmas mass in the southern Philippines wounded six people, including the priest.

Military officials would not immediately name any suspects in the blast on Jolo island, but the island is a known bastion of the Al Qaida linked Abu Sayyaf group.

"The explosion occurred at around 7:15 in the morning while the mass was going on. Six people were slightly wounded in the explosion," military spokesman Lieutenant Randolph Cabangbang said.

In the northern Nigerian city of Kano on Friday, gunmen attacked a church during Christmas Eve services but were fought off by soldiers, a military spokesman said.

No one was hurt in the incident, but in the central Nigerian city of Jos the same day, an explosion killed at least eight people and wounded another eight, police said.

The latest violence came as a self-proclaimed jihadist said in an audiotaped threat that countries celebrating Christmas would be targeted for attacks, the Site monitoring group said on Friday.

The recording, directed to "the unbeliever and Christian countries celebrating Christmas," bore the voice of a member of the Shumukh Al Islam forum, said the US-based monitor.

In Iraq, despite Al Qaida threats, about 40 worshippers gathered to mark Christmas Eve at the Saint Joseph church in central Baghdad, less than two months after a massacre at another church in the city.

In Rome, Pope Benedict XVI prayed for God to punish the world's "oppressors" and bring about "true brotherhood" between peoples in his traditional Christmas message in Saint Peter's basilica.

"Lord make your promise come finally true. Break the rods of the oppressors. Burn the tramping boots. Let the time of the garments rolled in blood come to an end," Benedict said at the Christmas Eve mass in the basilica.

In Britain, the leader of the world's Anglicans urged people to remember those across the globe who face persecution because of their Christian faith, in his Christmas Day sermon, extracts of which were released early on Saturday.

The sense of Christmas cheer was being sorely tested in parts of Europe where freezing temperatures have caused transport chaos, with thousands of travellers forced to spend the night in trains or barracks, on ferries or in airports as the snow piled up.