Huthaifa al-Batawi

Abu Huthaifa al-Batawi was an al-Qaeda in Iraq leader known as "The Emir of Baghdad" who died during an attempted jailbreak in Baghdad on May 8, 2011.^[1]

Al-Batawi was accused of being the mastermind of the 2010 Baghdad church attack in which 70 people died.^[2] His al-Qaeda faction was also accused of being behind bombings against the Al Arabiya television station's Baghdad bureau and the city's central bank.^[3] On November 27, one month after the church bombing, Iraqi security forces announced they had captured Al-Batawi and militants believed to have been co-conspirators in the church bombing^[2]

On May 8, 2011, in a Baghdad prison mutiny, al-Batawi overpowered a police officer who was leading him to an interrogation room, taking his weapon and shooting him dead. Al-Batawi had been unshackled for interrogation. He then freed a number of other prisoners associated along with him in the church massacre and killed Iraqi Brigadier General Moayeh al-Saleh, the counter-terrorism chief for Baghdad's central Karrada district, before being himself killed in a firefight. 17 people were killed overall, including 11 senior al-Qaeda militants, according to the Baghdad police spokesman. Another police source said eight inmates, most facing death sentences, were killed along with nine security officers, three of them senior officials.^[4]

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