Pope reveals he was almost assassinated in Iraq in 2021

Pope Francis was the subject of a foiled assassination plot involving a suicide bomber during a trip to Iraq in 2021, he wrote in his new memoir.

“Almost everyone advised me against that trip,” Francis wrote in his autobiography of his visit, the first ever by a pope, to Iraq. Excerpts from the book, which is set to hit shelves next month, were published in Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera on Tuesday.

He was visiting Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, which was captured by the Islamic State group in 2014. The extremists were expelled in 2017 by Iraqi forces, with the occupation and conflict leaving much of the city, including its centuries-old Catholic churches, in ruins.

When Francis arrived in Baghdad, he wrote that British intelligence had tipped off the Iraqi authorities, who in turned informed Vatican military police, about a woman wearing explosives heading to Mosul with the intention of blowing herself up during the papal visit. “And a van had also set off at full speed with the same intent,” Francis added.

Francis persisted with his tour of northern Iraq, visiting the crumbling shell of a destroyed church and leading prayers with the region’s Christian population, which had been displaced by Islamic State group militants.

The pope, who turned 88 on Tuesday, wrote that he later asked his Vatican security detail what happened to the suicide bomber. “The commander replied laconically ‘They’re no longer here,’” Francis wrote. “Iraqi police had intercepted them and made them explode.”

Francis, a former Argentinian priest and the first non-European pontiff in more than a millennium, was elected by the papal conclave in 2013 following Benedict XVI’s resignation.

He has spent much of his papacy visiting regions far from Rome and concluded a tour of Asia and Oceania in September, though his ailing health has forced him to cancel some engagements.