Tim Cocks / Reuters, file

Nigerian forces gather Monday in the Islamist stronghold of Maiduguri. Soldiers poured in this weeek before the military on Friday launched a major offensive against the insurgents.

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria -- Nigerian forces used jets and attack helicopters to bombard Islamist militant camps in the northeast on Friday, in their biggest military offensive since Boko Haram launched an uprising in 2009.

"A number of insurgents have been killed," the defense headquarters spokesman said, including at the Sambisa game reserve in Borno state, the epicenter of the insurgency.

"It is not just Sambisa. Every camp is under attack. But we have not done the mopping-up operations on the ground to determine the numbers killed," Brig. Gen. Chris Olukolade said by telephone. Another military source, who declined to be named, said at least 30 insurgents had been killed.

Nigerian forces are trying to regain territory controlled by increasingly well-armed Boko Haram Islamist insurgents in their northeastern stronghold states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa, put under a state of emergency by President Goodluck Jonathan on Wednesday.

More troops arrived in the Borno state capital, Maiduguri, on Friday, witnesses said.

"I saw more than 20 trucks loaded with soldiers fully kitted for battle towards Marte. I wish them luck in ending this BH (Boko Haram) madness," resident Ahmed Ibrahim said by telephone.

Beyond the region covered by the state of emergency, gunmen stormed a police station and a bank, the army said, a sign the offensive could provoke violence by smaller militant cells across the north.

Boko Haram, other Islamist militant groups such as al-Qaeda-linked Ansaru and associated criminal gangs have become the biggest threat to stability in Africa's top oil-producing nation.

Thousands have been killed since Boko Haram launched an uprising almost four years ago in an effort to create an Islamic state in a country of about 170 million split roughly equally between Christians, who are the majority in the south, and Muslims, who predominate in the north.

Violence has mostly happened far from the commercial hub, Lagos, or political capital, Abuja, and hundreds of miles away from oilfields in the southeast.

Military jets, helicopter gunships and thousands of troops are involved in the current offensive, which may answer some critics who accuse Jonathan, a southern Christian, of underestimating the severity of the crisis in the Muslim north.

Rights groups are concerned the state of emergency will lead to more abuses they have document by Nigerian forces.

Related:

• 185 killed in fighting between military, extremists
• Family kidnapped by Nigerian Islamists released
• Nigerian Islamists kill American, European hostages

Haruna Umar / AP

In this image shot with a mobile phone, a girl stands amid the burned ruins of Baga, Nigeria, on Sunday.

BAGA, Nigeria -- Fighting between Nigeria's military and Islamic extremists killed at least 185 people in a fishing community in the nation's far northeast, officials said Sunday, an attack that saw insurgents fire rocket-propelled grenades and soldiers spray machine-gun fire into neighborhoods filled with civilians.

The fighting in Baga began Friday and lasted for hours, sending people fleeing into the arid scrublands surrounding the community on Lake Chad. By Sunday, when government officials finally felt safe enough to see the destruction, homes, businesses and vehicles were burned throughout the area.

The assault marks a significant escalation in the long-running insurgency Nigeria faces in its predominantly Muslim north, with Boko Haram extremists mounting a coordinated assault on soldiers using military-grade weaponry. The killings also mark one of the deadliest incidents ever involving Boko Haram.

Authorities had found and buried at least 185 bodies as of Sunday afternoon, said Lawan Kole, a local government official in Baga. He spoke haltingly to Borno state Gov. Kashim Shettima in the Kanuri language of Nigeria's northeast, surrounded by still-frightened villagers.

Officials could not offer a breakdown of civilian casualties versus those of soldiers and extremist fighters. Many of the bodies had been burned beyond recognition in fires that razed whole sections of the town, residents said. Those killed were buried as soon as possible, following local Muslim tradition.

Brig. Gen. Austin Edokpaye, also on the visit, did not dispute the casualty figures. Edokpaye said Boko Haram extremists used heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades in the assault, which began after soldiers surrounded a mosque they believed housed members of the radical Islamic extremist network Boko Haram. Extremists earlier had killed a military officer, the general said.

Edokpaye said extremists used civilians as human shields during the fighting — implying that soldiers opened fire in neighborhoods where they knew civilians lived.

"When we reinforced and returned to the scene the terrorists came out with heavy firepower, including (rocket-propelled grenades), which usually has a conflagration effect," the general said.

However, local residents who spoke to an Associated Press journalist who accompanied the state officials said soldiers purposefully set the fires during the attack. Violence by security forces in the northeast targeting civilians has been widely documented by journalists and human rights activists. A similar raid in Maiduguri, Borno state's capital, in October after extremists killed a military officer saw soldiers kill at least 30 civilians and set fires across a neighborhood.

Sunday afternoon, the burned bodies of cattle and goats still filled the streets in Baga. Bullet holes marred burned buildings. Fearful residents of the town had begun packing to leave with their remaining family members before nightfall, despite Shettima trying to convince some to stay.

"Everyone has been in the bush since Friday night; we started returning back to town because the governor came to town today," grocer Bashir Isa said. "To get food to eat in the town now is a problem because even the markets are burnt. We are still picking corpses of women and children in the bush and creeks."

The Islamic insurgency in Nigeria grew out of a 2009 riot led by Boko Haram members in Maiduguri that ended in a military and police crackdown that killed some 700 people. The group's leader died in police custody in an apparent execution. From 2010 on, Islamic extremists have engaged in hit-and-run shootings and suicide bombings, attacks that have killed at least 1,548 people before Friday's attack, according to an AP count.

In January 2012, Boko Haram launched a coordinated attack in Kano, northern Nigeria's largest city, that killed at least 185 people as well. However, casualty numbers remain murky in Nigeria, where security and government officials often downplay figures.

Boko Haram, which means "Western education is sacrilege" in the Hausa language of Nigeria's north, has said it wants its imprisoned members freed and Nigeria to adopt strict Shariah law across the multiethnic nation of more than 160 million people. While the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan has started a committee to look at the idea of offering an amnesty deal to extremist fighters, Boko Haram's leader Abubakar Shekau has dismissed the idea out of hand in messages.

This story was originally published on Sun Apr 21, 2013 8:00 PM EDT

Reinnier Kaze / AFP - Getty Images

(From left) Former French hostages Tanguy Moulin-Fournier, his wife Albane and his brother Cyril pose at the French embassy in Yaounde on Friday. The family of seven were kidnapped in Cameroon in February by an Islamist movement from neighboring Nigeria.

YAOUNDE, Cameroon -- A French family of seven, including four children, have been released in Cameroon following secret talks, France said on Friday, ending two months of captivity in the hands of Nigerian Islamist militants.

Armed men on motorcycles snatched the family on February 19 while they were on holiday near the Waza national park in north Cameroon, some 6 miles from the Nigerian border.

"I spoke to the father this morning ... He told me how happy and relieved he was," French President Francois Hollande told a news conference in Paris on Friday. "This is an immense relief. This will redouble our determination to free the hostages who remain."

Eight French hostages remain held by al Qaeda-linked Islamist militant groups in the Sahel region.

Hollande said there had been contacts over the last few weeks to discreetly free the family under French terms and denied any ransom was paid.

"France has not changed its position, which is not to pay ransoms," he said.

The father of the kidnapped family, Tanguy Moulin-Fournier, worked in Cameroon for French utility firm GDF Suez. He was kidnapped with his wife, two daughters and two sons, and his brother, who was visiting them on holiday.

"We are very happy to be released. I want to thank (Cameroon) President Paul Biya for making all the effort to ensure our release," his tired-looking wife, Albane Moulin-Fournier, said on Cameroon television, holding her smallest child.

Both adult males of the family had thick beards while the children looked drawn, and wore flip-flops, knee-length trousers and tee-shirts.

Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh, secretary-general of Cameroon's presidency, said all family members were well.

State television showed the family descending from a plane where they were greeted on the tarmac by the French ambassador who took them to the embassy in the capital Yaounde.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius was due to meet them there, a French official said, and they would be repatriated to France as soon as possible.

The release of the hostages is a rare piece of good news for Hollande's government, which is struggling to cut unemployment and has been hit by a tax fraud scandal which has forced its budget minister to resign.

Mostly Muslim northern Cameroon is considered an area within the operational sphere of Islamist militants including Boko Haram, Nigeria's biggest security threat.

Gunmen claiming to be from Boko Haram released videos of the family in March, threatening to kill them unless Nigeria and Cameroon released Muslim militants held in detention.

Cameroon denied it was holding any militants and it was unclear if any of the group's demands had been met.

Additional reporting by John Irish and Brian Love in Paris.

Related:

Nigeria in 'massive manhunt' for French hostages

French special forces join search for family of 7 kidnapped in Africa

French family with 4 children kidnapped by Islamists in Africa

Sunday Alamba / AP

People read local newspapers with the headline 'We've killed 7 foreign hostages' on a street in Kano, Nigeria, on March 10.

ROME/ATHENS — Seven foreign hostages kidnapped last month by a Nigerian Islamist group from a construction firm's compound have been killed, the Italian and Greek Foreign Ministries said on Sunday.

Al Qaeda-affiliated group Ansaru said on Saturday it had killed the hostages seized on February 7 in the northern state of Bauchi because of attempts by Nigerian and British forces to free them.

It published grainy photos purporting to show the bodies of a Briton, an Italian, a Greek and four Lebanese workers snatched from the Lebanese firm Setraco.

Foreign governments had not been able to confirm the killings until Sunday. Italy and Greece denied any attempt to rescue them had been made by any of the governments involved. Nigeria had no confirmation of the killings.

"Our checks conducted in co-ordination with the other countries concerned lead us to believe that the news of the killing of the hostages seized last month is true," an Italian Foreign Ministry statement said.

"There was never any military attempt to rescue the hostages by any of the governments concerned," it said, adding the president had sent his condolences to the Italian's family.

Security has become a top concern for oil and infrastructure companies across the region after gunmen loyal to al Qaeda's north African franchise stormed an Algerian gas plant in January. Up to 37 foreigners died during an attempted rescue mission by Algerian forces.

The risk posed by Islamists across west and north Africa has greatly increased since France sent troops to Mail to wrest control of its northern territory from al Qaeda linked rebels.

Islamist groups have also spread across the north and centre of Nigeria, Africa's top oil producer, where they have become the main security threat after an amnesty ended an uprising by armed groups in the oil-producing southeastern Niger Delta.

Britain said it was "likely" the Briton was killed along with the six others, with Foreign Secretary William Hague saying: "This was an act of cold-blooded murder, which I condemn in the strongest terms."

Greece confirmed its citizen was dead, adding the Foreign Ministry had informed his family. Lebanon declined to comment.

Nigerian authorities continued to say they had no evidence, after doubting the veracity of the Ansaru statement on Saturday.

"We have launched a full investigation to find out what has really happened, but for now we really cannot way whether this report is true or not," police spokesman for Bauchi state Hassan Mohammed Auyo said by telephone.

SECURITY THREAT

Western security officials say growing links between Nigerian Islamists and Saharan groups such as al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has led them to increasingly seek Western targets, rather than local security forces or civilians.

French intervention in Mali has also heightened the risk to Western interests in Nigeria, analysts say, and French oil major Total moved its staff from the Nigerian capital Abuja, where the main insurgent group Boko Haram operates, in January.

Kidnappings - including some targeting foreigners - have been rife in the southeast for many years, but the gangs there usually seek a payout and hostages tend to be released quickly, while Islamist kidnappings in the north are often fatal.

The hostage-taking at the compound in the remote town of Jama'are was the largest number of foreigners seized in the mostly Muslim north since an Islamist insurgency intensified two years ago.

Ansaru declared itself a separate group from Boko Haram in January, although security officials believe them to be closely linked.

Its full name is Jama'atu Ansarul Musilimina Fi Biladis Sudan or "vanguards for the protection of Muslims in Black Africa".

Ansaru was suspected of being behind the killing of a British and Italian hostage a year ago in northwest Nigeria during a botched attempt to rescue them by British and Nigerian forces. Britain has labeled it a terrorist organization.

It also claimed responsibility for the kidnapping in December of a French national, still missing.

Nigerian authorities are still looking for a French family of seven kidnapped in northern Cameroon and moved over the border by militants who said they were from Boko Haram.

Additional reporting by Inusa Jaba in Bauchi and Tim Cocks in Lagos

Marc Preel / AFP - Getty Images

The French family, including four children, kidnapped in Cameroon on Tuesday were visiting Waza National Park, a source at the nature preserve said.

French special forces arrived in northern Cameroon on Wednesday to try to help locate a French family of seven, including four children, who were kidnapped by people thought to be Islamist militants and taken into Nigeria, officials in Cameroon said.

The abduction highlights the growing risk of attacks on French nationals and interests in Africa since Paris sent forces into Mali to oust Islamist rebels occupying the country's north.

Ian Langsdon / EPA

French Foreign Affairs Minister Laurent Fabius confirmed the abduction in Cameroon of the family of seven at a Tuesday news conference.

Speaking on French television, Joseph Dion Ngute, a junior minister at the foreign ministry, said the kidnappers had put the hostages on motorcycles after their car broke down.

"They then took another woman hostage with her car and fled into Nigeria," he said. "Our forces and the Nigerian forces were alerted, but before they reacted the kidnappers had vanished."

It was not clear what had happened to the additional female hostage.

Security in the Dabanga area, six miles from the Nigerian border, where they were taken has been reinforced and "urgent measures" to locate the family have been put in place, he said.

It is the first case of foreigners being seized in the mostly Muslim north of Cameroon, a former French colony. But the region -- like others in West and North Africa with typically porous borders -- is considered to be within the operational sphere of Nigerian Islamist militant groups Boko Haram and Ansaru.

The father of the family, which included four children ages 5 to 12, worked for utility firm GDF Suez. French television reported that the father was from a family of winemakers in the Burgundy region.

Nigerian army spokesman Col. Sagir Musa said the armed forces were on alert, "ready to apprehend any criminal elements or terrorists that come into our areas."

Related:

French family with 4 children kidnapped in Africa

Gunmen kill 9 polio health workers in Nigeria 

AFP - Getty Images / Thanassis Stavrakis

French President Francois Hollande speaks during a press conference after a meeting with Greece's Prime Minister Antonis Samaras at Maximos mansion in Athens on Tuesday. The president said the seven French nationals kidnapped in Cameron were been taken by a "terrorist group that we know and that is in Nigeria."

Gunmen from Nigeria kidnapped a French family that included four children on Tuesday in northern Cameroon near the border with Nigeria, French President Francois Hollande said.

They were apparently tourists, he said.

The risk of attacks on French nationals and interests in Africa has risen since France sent forces into Mali last month to help oust Islamist rebels occupying the country's north.

"They have been taken by a terrorist group that we know and that is in Nigeria," Hollande told reporters during a visit to Greece. Islamist militants in northern Nigeria now pose the biggest threat to stability in Africa's top oil-producing state.

Radio France International had earlier reported the kidnapping, saying that the seven people were nabbed by armed men on motorbikes and were being taken towards Nigeria.

Western governments have grown concerned that Nigeria's radical Islamists may link up with groups elsewhere in the region, particularly al-Qaida's North African wing, Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, given the conflict in nearby Mali.

The seven tourists were abducted at around 7 a.m. in a village about six miles from the Nigerian border near the Waza national park and Lake Chad in the extreme north of Cameroon where Westerners often go for holidays.

It was the first case of foreigners being seized in the mostly Muslim north of Cameroon, a former French colony.

"I see the hand of (Nigerian militants) Boko Haram in that part of Cameroon. France is in Mali, and it will continue until its mission is completed," Hollande said.

France intervened in Mali last month when Islamist rebels, after hijacking a rebellion by ethnic Tuareg MNLA separatists to seize control of the north in the confusion following a military coup, pushed south towards the capital, Bamako.

Eight French citizens are already being held in West Africa's Sahel region by al-Qaida-affiliated groups.

Cameroon Information Minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary said he could not immediately confirm the kidnapping report.

On Sunday, seven foreigners were snatched from the compound of Lebanese construction company Setraco in northern Nigeria's Bauchi state, and al-Qaida-linked Ansaru took responsibility.

Northern Nigeria is increasingly afflicted by attacks and kidnappings by Islamist militants. Ansaru, which rose to prominence only in recent months, has also claimed the abduction in December of a French national who is still missing.

An Ansaru statement said kidnappings were driven by "the transgression and atrocities done to the religion of Allah by the European countries in many places, such as Afghanistan and Mali."

Related: 

European Union approves €20 million in aid for Mali

Malian students head back to school after Islamist rebels expelled from Gao

Nigeria cautiously welcomes Boko Haram ceasefire

This story was originally published on Tue Feb 19, 2013 11:06 AM EST

KANO, Nigeria -- Gunmen on motorbikes shot dead nine health workers who were administering polio vaccinations in two separate attacks in Nigeria's main northern city of Kano Friday, police said.

No one claimed responsibility but Islamist militant group Boko Haram -- a sect which has condemned the use of Western medicine -- has been blamed for carrying out a spate of assaults on security forces in the city in recent weeks.

It is the second time this year that polio workers have come under attack by Islamist militants, after gunmen killed aid workers tackling the disease in Pakistan last month.

Some influential Muslim leaders in Kano openly oppose polio vaccination, saying it is a conspiracy against Muslim children.

The attacks will hit efforts by global health organizations to clear Nigeria's mostly-Muslim north of polio; a virus that can cause irreversible paralysis within hours of infection.

"Gunmen on bikes opened fire on a health center in the Hotoro district killing seven, while an attack on Zaria Road area of the city claimed two lives," said police spokesman Magaji Musa.

"They were working for the state government giving out polio vaccinations at the time of the attack," Musa added.

Kano government banned motorbikes from carrying passengers last month after the Emir of Kano, one of the country's most prominent leaders, was nearly killed when gunmen attacked his convoy, killing four of his aides.

Militants pose serious threat
Boko Haram killed hundreds last year as part of its campaign to impose Islamic law, or sharia, on a country of 160 million, split roughly equally between Christians and Muslims.

The group is seen as the most serious threat to the stability of Africa's top energy producer, and Western governments fear the country could become a base for operations of al-Qaida-linked Islamist groups in the Sahara.

President Goodluck Jonathan has highlighted links between Boko Haram and Saharan Islamists and said that relationship justified his decision to join efforts by French and West African forces to fight militants in Mali last month.

In 2003, northern Nigeria's Muslim leaders opposed polio vaccinations, saying they could cause infertility and AIDS.

Their campaign against the treatments was blamed for a resurgence of the disease in parts of Nigeria and other African countries previously declared polio-free.

Polio, a virus that attacks the nervous system, crippled thousands of people every year in rich nations until the 1950s. As a result of vaccination, it is now only endemic in three countries -- Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan.

According to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, there were 121 new cases of polio in Nigeria last year, compared to 58 in Pakistan and 37 in Afghanistan.

"This is certainly a setback for polio eradication in Nigeria, but not a stop," said Oyewale Tomori, a campaigner for polio eradication in Nigeria. "The best we can do is to work harder and see the end of polio ... so their loss will not end as a useless sacrifice."

At least 16 health workers taking part in polio vaccination drives were killed in attacks in Pakistan in December and January.

Local Taliban militants said they did not carry out those attacks although its leaders have repeatedly denounced the vaccination program as a plot to sterilize people or spy on Muslims.

Related:

Taliban bans Pakistan polio vaccinations over drone strikes

Eight polio workers slain in Pakistan in just 48 hours

Rumors of plot to sterilize Muslims with polio vaccine spark killings in Pakistan

Akintunde Akinleye / Reuters

A passenger speedboat churns up the water, while in the background an illegal oil refinery is left burning after an earlier military chase, in a windy creek near the Nun River in Bayelsa on Dec. 6, 2012.

Akintunde Akinleye / Reuters

A man works at an illegal oil refinery site near the Nun River in Bayelsa on Nov. 27, 2012.

Akintunde Akinleye / Reuters

A locally made boat containing crude oil is maneuvered through a creek near the Nun River in Bayelsa on Dec. 6, 2012.

Akintunde Akinleye / Reuters

A worker pours crude oil into a locally made burner using a funnel at an illegal oil refinery site near the Nun River in Bayelsa on Nov. 25, 2012.

By Akintunde Akinleye, Reuters

Here and there on the banks, people coated in oil wade through greasy mud in patches of landscape blackened and stripped of the thick vegetation that makes Nigeria's oil-producing delta so hard to police. Plumes of grey or yellow smoke fill the air as men who will give only their first names go to work in an illegal industry that the government says lifts a fifth of Nigeria's output of two million barrels a day.

Oil 'bunkering' -- hacking into pipelines to steal crude then refining it or selling it abroad -- has become a major cost to Nigeria's treasury, which depends on oil for 80 percent of its earnings.

Major General Johnson Ochoga, who leads a military campaign against bunkering that was stepped up last year under orders from President Goodluck Jonathan, told Reuters nearly 2,000 suspects had been arrested and 4,000 refineries, 30,000 drums of products and hundreds of bunkering boats destroyed in 2012.

Yet the complicity of security officials and politicians who profit from the practice, and the lack of alternatives for those who undertake it, cast doubt on the likelihood of success.

Read the full story.

Editor's note: Reuters made these pictures available to NBC News on Jan. 15.

Akintunde Akinleye / Reuters

A warning sign belonging to the company Royal Dutch Shell is seen along the Nembe Creek in Bayelsa on Dec. 2, 2012.

Akintunde Akinleye / Reuters

A man named Godswill works at an illegal oil refinery site, where steam rises from pipes carrying refined oil from a burner into broken containers, near the Nun River in Bayelsa on Nov. 27, 2012.

Akintunde Akinleye / Reuters

A man named Godswill collects crude oil from a mini storage unit filled with oil, which is waiting to be refined at an illegal refinery site near the Nun River in Bayelsa on Nov. 27, 2012.

Akintunde Akinleye / Reuters

Ebiowei, 48, pours water to reduce the intensity of the fire in a locally-made burner at an illegal oil refinery site near the Nun River on Nov. 27, 2012.

Akintunde Akinleye / Reuters

A closed fuel station is seen in the Ahoada community near Nigeria's oil hub city of Port Harcourt on Dec. 6, 2012.

Previously on PhotoBlog:

• Extremes of wealth and poverty revealed in photos of Nigerian oil industry
• Pipeline explosion kills at least 3 in Nigeria
• Wicked wicker car wows in Nigeria
• Smoldering scene in Lagos, Nigeria after plane crash
• Secret prison in the jungle on Nigerian island
• Thousands of Nigerians protest fuel prices, as government fears 'anarchy'

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria -- Nigeria's military killed 13 members of the Islamist militant group Boko Haram and lost one soldier on Tuesday in a gunbattle in Maiduguri, the group's northeastern stronghold, the army said.

Boko Haram, which is loosely based on the Afghan Taliban, killed hundreds last year in a campaign to impose Shariah, or Islamic law, in Nigeria, a country of more than 160 million split roughly equally between Christians and Muslims.

On Dec. 28, five people, including a police officer, were killed by gunmen believed to be Boko Haram members, police said. At least 32 people have now died in the northeast in the last week in violence presumed to be linked to Islamist militancy, the biggest threat to stability in Africa's main oil exporter. 

"One soldier was killed by Boko Haram while the JTF killed 13 Boko Haram," Sagir Musa, spokesman for the military Joint Task Force, said on Tuesday.

Nigeria church attack kills 19

The military in the northeast have in the past played down their own casualties in fighting with Boko Haram.

Musa said that members of the sect had detonated a bomb at a JTF checkpoints in Maiduguri, and that all the deaths had occurred in the ensuing gunbattle.

Christians told to leave northern Nigeria or be attacked

Maiduguri, a remote, dusty town close to the borders of Chad and Niger, has been a hotbed of violence, directed mostly at the security forces, since Boko Haram took up arms in 2009.

Boko Haram's insurgency intensified after Goodluck Jonathan, a southern Christian, was elected president in April 2011.

Gunmen kill at least 25 at Nigeria college residence

Jonathan has been unable to stop the rebellion despite waves of military offensives in the northeast and other parts of northern and central Nigeria where Boko Haram has a strong presence.

Western governments are increasingly concerned about Islamists in northern Nigeria linking up with outside groups, including al-Qaida's North African wing.

More Nigeria coverage from NBC News

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Franco Origlia / Getty Images

Pope Benedict XVI delivers his Christmas Day message from the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica on Christmas day in Vatican City.

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Benedict used his Christmas message to the world on Tuesday to say people should never lose hope for peace, even in conflict-riven Syria and in Nigeria where he spoke of "terrorism" against Christians.

Marking the eighth Christmas season of his pontificate, the 85-year-old read his "Urbi et Orbi" (to the city and the world) message to tens of thousands of people in St Peter's Square and to millions of others watching around the world.

Slideshow: Christmas around the world

Paul J. Richards / AFP - Getty Images

In churches and bus stations, on water skis and bicycles, people from the Middle East to middle America celebrate Christmas.

Launch slideshow

Delivering Christmas greetings in 65 languages, Benedict underscored his view that the hope represented by Christmas should never die, even in the most dire of situations.

Pilgrims, locals mark Christmas in Bethlehem

In his virtual tour of the some of the world's trouble spots, he reserved his toughest words for Syria, Nigeria and Mali.

"Yes, may peace spring up for the people of Syria, deeply wounded and divided by a conflict which does not spare even the defenseless and reaps innocent victims," he said.

"Once again I appeal for an end to the bloodshed, easier access for the relief of refugees and the displaced, and dialogue in the pursuit of a political solution to the conflict."

The leader of the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics also condemned conflicts in Mali and Nigeria, two countries where Islamist groups have waged violent campaigns.

Bombings, amputations
"May the birth of Christ favor the return of peace in Mali and that of concord in Nigeria, where savage acts of terrorism continue to reap victims, particularly among Christians," he said.

In Nigeria, the Islamist sect Boko Haram has killed hundreds in its campaign to impose sharia law in the north of the country, targeting a number of churches.

In Mali, a mix of Islamists with links to al Qaeda have occupied the country's north since April, destroying much of the region's religious heritage. They have also carried out amputations to help impose strict Islamic law on a population that has practiced a more moderate form of Islam for centuries.

Benedict also held out a Christmas olive branch to the new government in China, asking is members to "esteem the contributions of religions". China does not allow its Catholics to recognize the pope's authority, forcing them to be members of a parallel state-backed Church.

Late on Monday night, Benedict presided over a Christmas Eve Mass in St Peter's Basilica, where he urged people to find room for God in their fast-paced lives filled with the latest technological gadgets.

"Do we have time and space for him? Do we not actually turn away God himself? We begin to do so when we have no time for him," he said.

Scientists unravel secret of Rudolph's red nose

Archbishop: Christianity still relevant
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, who leads the global 80-million-strong Anglican Communion, said in his Christmas day sermon that the answer to the question of whether Christianity had "had its day" was a "resounding no".

Last month, the Church of England narrowly voted against allowing women bishops - to the dismay of Williams and Prime Minister David Cameron - in a move its leaders said risked undermining its role as the established church in society with clerics in parliament's upper chamber.

The media, many politicians and some members of the public have criticized the Church of England for failing to allow women bishops and for failing to back government plans for gay marriage at a time when it is under pressure to modernize.

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