Pope Francis says assassination plots were foiled on Iraq visit

The papal visit was the first such trip to Iraq by a sitting pope and was at the time considered to be dangerous, with Iraq long-riven by sectarian violence between Shia and Sunni Muslims.

Religious minorities such as Christians had also endured persecution from the Islamic State, or ISIS, which had been driven out a few years earlier. 

The timing of the trip, coming during the coronavirus pandemic, added to the logistical complexities, with Iraqi authorities deploying thousands of extra police to protect the pope.

“The Covid-19 had not yet fully loosened its grip, even the nuncio to that country, Monsignor Mitja Leskovar, had just tested positive for the virus, and, above all, every source pointed to very high security risk profiles,” Francis wrote.

Despite the risk, “I felt the need to visit our grandfather Abraham, the common ancestor of Jews, Christians and Muslims,” he added.

With the former ISIS having lost most of its territory in Syria and northern Iraq by the end of 2019, the Pope’s visit came in the wake of the so-called caliphate’s violence in the region — particularly in Mosul, which had been a stronghold for the militant group.

Surrounded by the gray, hollowed-out shells of four churches, the pope was greeted by a jubilant crowd in the city which witnessed the worst of the terrorist group’s rule, including beheadings and mass killings.

Iraq’s Christian minority, one of the oldest in the world, faced persecution under the rule of ISIS, with many members of the community forced to leave behind homes and churches destroyed or commandeered by the extremists.

The country’s Christian population fell to fewer than 250,000 from an estimated 1.4 million before the U.S. invasion of 2003, according to a 2019 report by the State Department.

In the event, the pope’s trip to Mosul went off without a hitch. When he passed over the devastated city in a helicopter, the he wrote in ‘Hope,’ that it “presented itself to my eyes as an expanse of rubble” and “appeared to me from above as an X-ray of hatred.”