Iraqi leader: No plot to kill Pope Francis during 2021 visit

After Pope Francis said this week that he was nearly assassinated in Iraq, a former political leader in the country said there was no thwarted plot to kill the pope, and that Francis might have gotten bad intelligence about his 2021 visit to the country.

Pope Francis’ speaks March 5, 2021, in the hall of the Presidential Palace in Baghdad, Iraq. Credit: قناة التغيي/wikimedia. CC BY SA 3.0

“The talk of an assassination attempt might stem from some security entities' attempts to achieve media gains or draw attention, or possibly from incorrect intelligence reaching the pope,” former Nineveh governor Najm al-Jubouri said Dec. 18, according to Baghdad’s Shafaq News.

“We never heard of or saw any evidence of this alleged attempt, and it is surprising that such claims are being made now, especially since we in Iraq were unaware of these rumors,” al-Jubouri added.

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The Iraqi politician’s statement came after an excerpt was published Tuesday from Pope Francis’s forthcoming autobiography, in which Pope Francs claims that he was told during his March 2021 visit to Iraq that at least two suicide bombers had plotted to attack a papal event in Mosul, the capital of the Nineveh Governorate.

“A woman packed with explosives, a young kamikaze, was heading to Mosul to blow herself up during the papal visit,” Pope Francis wrote, according to an except published in Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. “And a van had also set off at full speed with the same intent.”

Francis wrote in the excerpt that he was told about the assassination attempt by British intelligence officers. He recounted being told that Iraqi police had stopped the would-be assassins, and “blown them up.”

But after that claim received international attention this week, al-Jubouri insisted it was not true.

“No report indicated any threat to the pope’s life, and all security operations and directives in Nineveh were issued under my direct supervision,” the former governor, a retired Iraqi general, said Wednesday.

“Nineveh enjoyed a high level of security and stability during that period, allowing the pope to visit the city comfortably. The Pope's visit was not the only one; it was followed by French President Emmanuel Macron's visit, who toured the old city and visited several sites without any security incidents,” al-Jubouri said, according to Shafaq News.

“The pope's visit in March 2021 was meticulously planned with no security threats or incidents,” the politician added. “The visit was pre-planned at the highest levels, with multiple teams arriving days in advance to ensure the Pope's safety from his entry into Nineveh, through his visit to the old city, and his trips to Alqosh and Hamdaniya.”

“Teams included personnel from Nineveh, Baghdad, British and American security teams, and a specialized Iraqi intelligence team.”

Pope Francis during a public event in Mosul, Iraq, March 7, 2021. Credit: قناة التغيير/wikimedia. CC BY SA 3.0

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If there was a plot to assassinate Pope Francis in Iraq, it was not the most recent attempt to kill the pope.

In September, seven people were arrested by Indonesian authorities, who said the detainees had plotted to kill Pope Francis during his visit to the country. The alleged plotters were affiliated with ISIS, according to Indonesian media reports, and were angry that the pope planned to visit a historic mosque in the country, and that his visit had disrupted the national broadcast of an Islamic call to prayer on Indonesian television networks.

Neither the Vatican nor British intelligence services have commented on the conflicting reports of Pope Francis and al-Jubouri.