Riccardo De Luca - Update / Shutterstock.com
CV NEWS FEED // A suicide bomber had the intention of detonating herself during Pope Francis’ 2021 trip to Mosul, Iraq, according to an excerpt of the Pope’s autobiography that will be published in January.
On Dec. 17, on the occasion of the Pontiff’s 88th birthday, Italian publication Corriere della Sera published the excerpt, in which Pope Francis recounts the dangerous visit to Iraq. Pope Francis writes: “I had been advised against that trip by almost everyone.”
“It was to be the first visit by a pope to the Middle East, a region torn apart by extremist violence and jihadist desecration,” he writes, noting that there were “extremely high security risks” reported leading up to the visit.
Pope Francis recounts that on arriving in Mosul, Iraq, in a helicopter, “as I looked down, all I could see was a field of rubble, following three years of occupation by the Islamic State, which had made it their stronghold.”
The day prior, in Baghdad, Pope Francis had been told about an assassination plots against him.
“The police had alerted the Vatican Gendarmerie based on intelligence received from British secret services: a woman strapped with explosives, a young suicide bomber, was heading to Mosul to detonate herself during the papal visit. A van had also set off at high speed with the same intent,” Pope Francis writes.
No other information on the plot is provided in the excerpt.
“The trip went ahead,” Pope Francis continues. “There were meetings with authorities at Baghdad’s presidential palace. There was a gathering with bishops, priests, religious, and catechists at the Syriac Catholic Cathedral of Our Lady of Salvation, where, 11 years earlier, two priests and 46 faithful had been massacred — whose beatification process is now underway.”
He then recounts that he met with Iraq’s religious leaders in Ur.
This is not the only plot against Pope Francis’ life that has occurred. In September of this year, Pope Francis visited Jakarta, Indonesia. During the visit, Indonesian police arrested seven people in connection to online violent threats, including threats involving bombs, against the Pope.
