BAGHDAD (NYTIMES, AFP, REUTERS) - Pope Francis landed in Baghdad on Friday (March 5) for his most risky foreign trip since his election in 2013, saying he felt duty-bound to make the "emblematic" visit because Iraq had suffered so much for so long.

An Alitalia plane carrying him, his entourage, a security detail, and about 75 journalists, touched down at Baghdad International Airport slightly ahead of schedule just before 2pm local time.

Iraq is deploying thousands of additional security personnel to protect the 84-year-old pope during the visit, which comes after a spate of rocket and suicide bomb attacks raised fears for his safety.

"I am happy to be making trips again," he said in brief comments to reporters aboard his plane, alluding to the coronavirus pandemic which has prevented him from travelling. The Iraq trip is his first outside Italy since November 2019.

"This is an emblematic trip and it is a duty towards a land that has been martyred for so many years," Francis said, before donning a mask and greeting each reporter individually, without shaking hands.

Francis's whirlwind tour will take him by plane, helicopter and possibly armoured car to four cities, including areas that most foreign dignitaries are unable to reach, let alone in such a short space of time. Freshly paved roads will be lined with flowers and posters welcoming the leader known here as "Baba Al-Vatican".

He will say Mass at a Baghdad church, meet Iraq's top Shi'ite Muslim cleric in the southern city of Najaf and travel north to Mosul, where the army had to empty the streets for security reasons last year for a visit by Iraq's prime minister. Mosul is a former ISIS stronghold, and churches and other buildings there still bear the scars of conflict.

The pope's visit has deeply touched Iraq's Christians, whose numbers have collapsed over years of persecution and sectarian violence, from 1.5 million in 2003 to fewer than 400,000 today.

What about the Covid-19 pandemic?

In his weekly address on Wednesday, the pope said he would not be deterred by the pandemic.

"I ask that you accompany this apostolic trip with prayer so that it can occur in the best way possible, bear the hoped-for fruit," he said. "The Iraqi people await us."

Pope Francis, who has been vaccinated, has urged wealthy countries to give vaccine doses to poorer ones and called a refusal to vaccinate "suicidal". The pope's entourage has also been inoculated.

The possibility that Pope Francis might inadvertently endanger an Iraqi population with practically no access to vaccines is not lost on his allies back in Rome.

"There is this concern that the pope's visit not put the people's health at risk - this is evident," said the Rev Antonio Spadaro, a Jesuit priest and close ally of Francis. "There is an awareness of the problem."

The Vatican insists that the trip will be a safe, socially distanced and sober visit devoid of the usual fanfare. A Vatican spokesperson also played down the number of cases in Iraq when reporters asked how Pope Francis could justify not delaying the trip.

Supporters worry that the pope's goals for the visit could be eclipsed by any indication that he is contributing to the spread of the coronavirus by staging events where social distancing is hard to enforce.

What will he do while he is there?

Pope Fancis has a busy schedule during the visit. He starts in Baghdad and will meet with political officials, as is customary, before meeting with Catholic clergy and seminarians at Our Lady of Salvation, the Syrian Catholic church where an attack in 2010 killed more than 50 people.

On Saturday (March 6), he will fly to Najaf, the holiest city for Shi'ites in Iraq. There, he will meet with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, a reclusive 90-year-old Muslim cleric who remains almost completely out of public life. The most revered Shiite cleric in Iraq, the ayatollah rarely meets with foreign dignitaries.

Another highlight of Pope Francis' day will be an interreligious meeting at the Plain of Ur, which tradition holds was the home of Abraham, the patriarch of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Pope Francis will deliver a speech there and then return to Baghdad, where he will celebrate Mass at the Chaldean Church.

On Sunday, he is scheduled to fly to Irbil, in the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan, which has been the site of rocket attacks in recent days.

After meeting officials there, the pope will depart by helicopter for Mosul, a once religiously diverse city that has been laid to waste by war and by the Islamic State group's occupation of part of Iraq. Pope Francis will deliver a prayer for war victims in the city's Church Square.

He then travels to Qaraqosh, one of Iraq's most vibrant Christian towns, whose community has been sharply eroded by violence and migration over the last decade. He will deliver a speech at a church and then return to Irbil, where he will celebrate an outdoor Mass at Franso Hariri soccer stadium.

He returns to Rome on Monday (March 8).

What does the visit mean for Iraq's leaders?

Iraq has welcomed the visit as a chance to showcase its relative stability after years of war and sectarian conflict. But it takes place against the backdrop of continued rocket attacks by Iran-backed militias on US targets in Iraq, including an assault Wednesday. That is on top of a persistent Islamic State presence two years after the terrorist group lost the last of the territory it controlled there.

The pope will be formally welcomed by Iraq's head of state, President Barham Salih, a Kurdish politician who previously met Francis in Rome and has made minority rights a priority.

Pope Francis will also meet with Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, who came to power after the previous prime minister resigned in 2019 amid sweeping anti-government protests.

The pope's most highly anticipated official meeting in Iraq will be with Ayatollah Sistani. The ayatollah's messages, delivered through a representative, carry great weight. And he has changed the course of Iraqi history on issues such as elections.

The papal meeting will be a private one at the ayatollah's modest home in Najaf. Officials there have said they do not expect any agreement between the two to be signed.

Why is Iraq important to the Roman Catholic Church?

Christianity's roots in Iraq extend back to the first decades of the faith. The tombs of biblical figures such as Jonah and Joshua are believed to be there.

Iraq's Christian population was once a vibrant community of various Christian rites - including Armenian, Assyrian, Chaldean, Melkite and Syriac. But it has been culled by persecution, a devastating decade of war after the US invasion in 2003, and then decimation at the brutal hands of the Islamic State from 2014 to 2017.

Many of the country's surviving Christians fled to Canada, Jordan, Turkey and the United States. For Christians, the pope's coming to bear witness to their suffering is a powerful show of solidarity.