Pope Francis said he was the target of an attempted suicide attack when he visited Iraq three years ago, the first visit by a Roman Catholic leader to the country and arguably the riskiest trip in the 11 years since he became pope.
In an excerpt from his upcoming autobiography published today, Francis said that after he landed in Baghdad in March 2021, police informed him that two known suicide bombers were planning to attack one of his scheduled events.
“A woman loaded with explosives, a young suicide bomber, was heading towards Mosul to blow herself up during the pope’s visit. Also, a van was speeding away with the same intention,” Francis wrote, according to an excerpt from the book published in the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, Reuters writes.
The pope’s visit to Mosul was a key moment in his trip to Iraq. Iraq’s second-largest city was under Islamic State control from 2014 to 2017. The pope visited the ruins of churches there and appealed for peace.
During the trip, the Vatican provided few details about the security arrangements for the pope.
Many of the events during his visit, which came as the coronavirus pandemic eased, were open to a limited number of people. Iraq has deployed thousands of security forces to protect Francis. The Vatican did not immediately respond to a request for further details about the pope’s new claims. Francis’s new autobiography, titled Hope, will be published on January 14.
The pope also published a memoir in March. In an excerpt released on Tuesday, Francis said British intelligence had informed the Vatican of the planned assassination. The pope said he asked a security official the next day about the fate of the suspected attackers.
“The commander replied laconically: ‘They are no more.’ Iraqi police intercepted and blew them up,” Francis wrote.
