World Has Edgy Little Christmas

With grenades and gunfire, celebration and prayer, a world on the edge of war observed an often-jittery Christmas on Wednesday.

At the Vatican, Pope John Paul II called upon all people to “accept the Christmas message of peace.”

Speaking in a tremulous voice from the steps of St. Peter’s Basilica, the 82-year-old pontiff urged believers of all faiths to “extinguish the ominous smoldering of a conflict which, with the joint efforts of all, can be avoided.”

But there was little sign of conflict avoidance on the day when Christians honor the birth of Jesus. Instead, the day was marked by reminders of growing tensions between Muslim nations and the West -- strains that made Christmas a holiday of anxiety for many.

In Pakistan, police said two people dressed in concealing burkas went to a small church in a provincial village and threw a grenade at worshipers. Three women were killed and 11 other people were injured, four critically, authorities said. The two attackers escaped. Authorities said they were questioning a Muslim cleric who had made hateful remarks against Christians.

Authorities said they believe Muslim militants were responsible for the attack. Militant groups have stepped up attacks on Pakistan’s small Christian minority since the U.S.-led attack on Afghanistan last year. Wednesday’s killings were the fourth such incident in Pakistan this year.

In Washington, a light snow dusted the historic monuments and gave the Capitol the allure of a picture postcard. With the president at Camp David for the holiday, the government was closed and the city quiet.

But in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Turkey and elsewhere in their region, U.S. troops gathered at bases that might soon be staging areas for an attack on Iraq.

Soldiers marked the holiday with trappings that have become traditional -- roast turkey, baked ham and words from visiting politicians and celebrities.

In Afghanistan, David Letterman dined with troops at a base outside Kandahar, a southern city that not long ago was a Taliban stronghold.

Troops at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, where roughly 4,000 U.S. personnel are based, heard from visiting Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.). In a reference to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Lieberman praised the troops for helping to “keep Saddam in the box.”

The day before, the Iraqi leader had released a Christmas Eve message condemning the “powers of evil and darkness” threatening “large-scale military aggression against our peace-loving people.”

In addition to the pope, many Christian leaders have questioned American policy toward Iraq. In Britain, Rowan Williams, the recently installed archbishop of Canterbury, used his first Christmas address to once again voice his opposition.

The world has “grown old in intrigue and violence, cynicism, despair and false hope,” Williams said. “It is as if the wise, the devious and the resourceful can’t help but make the most immense mistakes of all.”

United Nations weapons experts, meanwhile, visited seven potential arms sites in Iraq on Wednesday, including explosives factories and a paper plant.”They are in Baghdad to work,” Mark Gwozdecky, a spokesman for the International Atomic Energy Agency, told reporters.

In Bethlehem, which tradition calls Jesus’ birthplace, driving rain deepened the gloom caused by vacant hotels and empty streets largely devoid of Christmas decorations.

Two years of almost constant violence between Israelis and Palestinians have all but erased the tourist traffic that once enlivened Christmas in Bethlehem. Israeli troops recently reoccupied the town seeking to block suicide bombers who have used it as a staging area for attacks in nearby Jerusalem.

At St. Catherine’s Church, officials left an empty chair in the front row for the midnight Mass, draping it with a kaffiyeh headdress to remind worshipers of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, who was absent for the second year in a row.

The Israeli government has confined the Palestinian leader to his compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah, saying he will not be allowed to leave until he takes action to stop attacks on Israelis.

At morning Mass in the Church of the Nativity, Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah, the senior Roman Catholic clergyman in the Holy Land, told worshipers that “despite the difficult circumstances, we still have to maintain hope with the love of God and say hopefully that next year will be a better Christmas.”

Elsewhere in the West Bank, Israeli troops in the city of Nablus shot and killed a suspected member of the militant group Hamas.

In addition, men armed with crude bombs attacked a busy church in India’s West Bengal province. Six people were wounded. Police said the motive for that attack appeared to be robbery; the attackers broke into a church safe before fleeing.

Across Asia, Christians worshiped surrounded by heightened security.

In Indonesia, police seized 550 pounds of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, an amount authorities said was sufficient to make a large bomb. The material, they said, was destined for a fugitive who is part of a group that had talked of staging a bomb attack on Christmas Eve.

Elsewhere in the island nation, a priest expressed the fears of many: “It should be that Christmas does not make people scared like it does these days,” Father Yong Ohoitimur told congregants at a church in Manado, a city with a large Christian population.

*

Neuman reported from Washington and Shuster from Los Angeles. Times wire services contributed to this report.