Abu Huthaifa al-Batawi ( ar, أبو حذيفة البطاوي, ʾAbū Ḥuḏayfah al-Baṭṭāwī) was a commander in the

Islamic State of Iraq The Islamic State of Iraq (ISI; ar, دولة العراق الإسلامية '), commonly referred to as al-Qaeda in Iraq ( ar, القاعدة في العراق '), is a militant Salafist jihadist group that aimed to establish an Islamic stat ...

(ISI) militant group and its leader in

Baghdad Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon. I ...

. He was killed during an attempted jailbreak on May 8, 2011. Al-Batawi was accused of being the mastermind of the

2010 Baghdad church attack In the 2010 Baghdad church massacre, six suicide bomber jihadists of a group called Islamic State of Iraq attacked a Syriac Catholic church in Baghdad during Sunday evening Mass, on 31 October, 2010, and began killing the worshipers. The Islam ...

in which 70 people died. His subordinates were also accused of being behind bombings against the

Al Arabiya Arabiya ( ar, العربية, transliterated: '; meaning "The Arabic One" or "The Arab One") is an international Arabic news television channel, currently based in Dubai, that is operated by the media conglomerate MBC. The channel is a fl ...

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 a number of other militants. 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 Brigadier general or Brigade general is a military rank used in many countries. It is the lowest ranking general officer in some countries. The rank is usually above a colonel, and below a major general or divisional general. When appointed ...

Moayeh al-Saleh, the counter-terrorism chief for Baghdad's central

Karrada Karrada ( ar, كرّادة ''Karrāda'') is an upper-class district of the city of Baghdad, Iraq. It has a mixed population of Muslims and Christians. It is one of the most religiously diverse areas of the city, and is one of the two major distri ...

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.

References

2011 deaths Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant members Al-Qaeda propagandists Iraqi propagandists Deaths by firearm in Iraq Members of al-Qaeda in Iraq People from Baghdad Year of birth missing {{Iraq-bio-stub