VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis has revealed he was the target of an attempted suicide bombing during his visit to Iraq three years ago, the first by a Catholic pontiff to the country and probably the riskiest foreign trip of his 11-year papacy.
In an excerpt published Tuesday from a forthcoming autobiography, Francis said he was informed by police after landing in Baghdad in March 2021 that at least two suicide bombers were targeting one of his planned events.
“A woman packed with explosives, a young kamikaze, was heading to Mosul to blow herself up during the papal visit,” wrote the pontiff, according to an excerpt from the book in Italian daily Corriere della Sera.