Suicide bombers had planned to attack Pope Francis on a trip to Iraq in 2021, but were killed before they could strike, according to his autobiography.
British intelligence informed Iraqi police when Francis arrived in Baghdad that a woman wearing explosives was heading towards Mosul and was planning to blow herself up during the papal visit.
“A truck was heading there fast with the same intention,” Francis, 88, says in excerpts of Hope: The Autobiography released by Italian daily newspaper Corriere della Sera.
In the book, the pope said he later asked his Vatican security team what happened to the suicide bombers.
“The commander replied laconically, ‘They’re no longer here’,” Francis writes.
“Iraqi police had intercepted them and made them explode. This struck me as well: even this is the poisonous fruit of war.”
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The trip to Iraq in March 2021 was the first by a pope and took place as the COVID pandemic continued.
The northern city of Mosul had been the headquarters of Islamic State militants, whose horrific reign had largely emptied the region of its Christian communities.
Despite the bomb threats, the visit went ahead as planned under tight security.
It became one of the most poignant of Francis’s foreign trips. Standing in the wreckage of a Mosul church, he urged Iraq’s Christians to forgive the injustices against them by Muslim extremists and to rebuild.
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Hope: The Autobiography, written with Italian author Carlo Musso, is set to be released in more than 80 countries next month at the start of the Vatican’s Holy Year.
