Pope John Paul at the mass. (AFP)

Vatican City, April 11 (Reuters): Amid some of the tightest security ever seen at the Vatican, Pope John Paul issued an Easter condemnation of terrorism today and urged world leaders to bring peace to Iraq and other flashpoints.

Speaking to tens of thousands of people in St Peter’s Square and millions of television viewers and radio listeners, he railed against “a logic of death” pervasive in the world.

“May (humanity) find the strength to face the inhuman, and unfortunately growing, phenomenon of terrorism,” he said in his “Urbi et Orbi” (to the city and the world) message.

The long shadow of the conflict in Iraq reached as far as St Peter’s Square this year with an Easter season that has been marked by unprecedented security for fear of an attack at the heart of Christianity or elsewhere in Italy.

Many more police — in uniform and plainclothes — were on hand than in the past to check people as they entered the Vatican area

The Polish Pope, who afterwards wished the world a Happy Easter in 62 languages — including Arabic and Hebrew — painted one of the bleakest pictures of the world that he ever has in his 26 Easters as Roman Catholic leader.

He said that the international community had its work cut out for it in trying to deal with conflicts and asked God to sustain world leaders “in their efforts to resolve satisfactorily the continuing conflicts” in Iraq, the Holy Land and Africa.