Huthaifa al-Batawi

Who is 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.

Al-Batawi was accused of being the mastermind of the 2010 Baghdad church attack in which 70 people died. 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. 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

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.