BAGHDAD • Pope Francis arrived in Baghdad yesterday for his most risky foreign trip since his election in 2012, saying he felt duty-bound to make the "emblematic" visit because Iraq had suffered so much for so long.
His first stop after his plane touched down at Baghdad International Airport was to meet Iraqi President Barham Salih at the presidential palace, where a red carpet, military band and flock of doves greeted the Pontiff.
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.
"I am happy to be making trips again," Pope Francis said in brief comments to reporters aboard his plane, alluding to the 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."
Pope Francis' 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.
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 stronghold of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and churches and other buildings there still bear the scars of conflict.
Since the defeat of ISIS militants in 2017, Iraq has seen a greater degree of security, though violence persists, often in the form of rocket attacks by Iran-aligned militias on United States targets, and American military action in response.
On Wednesday, 10 rockets landed on an airbase that hosts US, coalition and Iraqi forces.
ISIS also remains a threat.
In January, a suicide attack claimed by the Sunni militant group killed 32 people in Baghdad's deadliest such attack for years.
Pope Francis will meet clergy at the Baghdad church where Islamist gunmen killed more than 50 worshippers in 2010.
Violence against Iraq's minority religious groups, especially when a third of the country was being run by ISIS, has reduced its ancient Christian community to a fifth of its once 1.5 million people.
The Pontiff will also visit Ur, birthplace of the prophet Abraham, who is revered by Christians, Muslims and Jews.
The meeting with the revered top Shi'ite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, 90, who wields great influence over Iraq's Shi'ite majority and in the country's politics, will be the first by a pope.
Some Shi'ite militant groups have opposed the Pope's visit, framing it as Western interference in Iraq's affairs, but many Iraqis hope that it can help foster a fresh view of their country.
"It might not change much on the ground, but at least if the Pope visits, people will see our country in a different light, not just bombs and war," said Mr Ali Hassan, a 30-year-old Baghdad resident picking up relatives at the airport.
REUTERS
