Two attempted attacks on Pope Francis, including one by a suicide bomber, were foiled during his landmark trip to Iraq in 2021, the pontiff has revealed in an autobiography.
The pope wrote that he was warned of a report by British security services that a young woman with explosives was on her way to Mosul to blow herself up during his visit. Francis added that he was told a van “had also left at high speed with the same intention.”
Francis, who turns 88 on Tuesday, made the remarks in a new memoir, “Hope,” which will be released early next year.
“When I asked the (Vatican) Gendarmerie the following day what was known about the two bombers, the commander replied laconically, ‘They are no longer there,’” he wrote in the memoir, an extract of which was published by Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera.
“The Iraqi police had intercepted them, and detonated them. That, too, was very striking to me. This, too, was the poisoned fruit of war.”
Francis’ visit to Iraq was the first by a pontiff to the country, and was considered a very high-risk journey, both for security reasons and due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
But Francis explained he was determined to go to Iraq, a country rich in biblical history, and home to one of the oldest Christian communities in the world.
During the trip he showed solidarity with persecuted Christians in the country and held a historic meeting with the Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani, one of the leading authorities of Shia Islam.