Al Batawi was killed on May 8 during a breakout at the central Baghdad
prison in Karada, which contains 250 inmates, many of them Al Qaida
suspects, Middle East Newsline reported. Officials said an AQI inmate seized a gun from a prison guard and
shot dead several officers and Interior Ministry officials.
The detainee then handed the firearm to other inmates in a shooout that
lasted at least four hours. Officials said 11 AQI operatives were killed and
none of the inmates escaped.
Al Batawi was deemed the planner of an AQI attack on a church in which
at least 52 people were killed in November 2010. Al Batawi was captured
along with 11 other insurgency suspects.
The shootout at Karada led to the killing of at least three senior
officers, including Brig. Gen. Muaid Mahdi. Mahdi was identified as
investigations chief at the Interior Ministry's counter-insurgency unit.
"We must not allow such setbacks to happen in the security field," Prime
Minister Nouri Al Maliki said.
The shootout took place amid accelerated U.S. efforts to train Iraq's
military and police before Washington's scheduled pullout in late 2011.
Officials acknowledged numerous problems with the police and security forces
amid AQI's insurgency campaign.
On May 9, an Iraqi police chief escaped assassination when an explosion
ripped through his motorcade in downtown Baghdad. A bodyguard of the
presumed target, Maj. Gen. Sabah Al Shibli, was killed and two police
officers were injured.
"The Iraqis are using the wrong strategy with prisoners and terrorists,"
parliamentarian Hakim Al Zamili, a member of the Security Committee, said.
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