Pope Francis on Friday began the first-ever papal trip to Iraq, landing in a country with an extraordinary biblical history but that is also experiencing a serious coronavirus outbreak and ongoing political turmoil, the Washington Post reports. Pope Francis’s four-day visit is his first international trip since the start of the pandemic and marks a return to the globe-trotting diplomacy — especially to minority-Christian countries — that had been his hallmark. It amounts to a show of encouragement for a nation trying to recover from the chaos of a US-led invasion and the brutality of the Islamic State, a group that once vowed to “conquer Rome.” But some have questioned why he is choosing to make the trip now. Militias are competing for power and launching rocket attacks. Iraqi security forces have killed and wounded scores of protesters in recent weeks. The Islamic State has been beaten back, but not fully eliminated. And coronavirus cases have climbed higher and higher over the past month, prompting the Iraqi government to impose a curfew and other restrictions, including against religious gatherings.