Al Khalis, Khalis or Al Khales is a town roughly 15 kilometers (9 mi) North of Baqubah in one of the six districts of the Diyala Governorate. In the Arabic language, Al Khalis translates to the word pure. The word is derived from the verb Khalasa which translates to "rid off".

Al Khalis now is a collection of many neighbourhoods which was built around a tiny farming village known as Alibat. Alibat is a small farming village inhabited by a mix of sunnis and shia whom together coexisted and intermarried each other. Alibat is a compound word which translates to "Ali Sleptover". Ali is the cousin of prophet Mohammed and also the fourth Khalif in Islam. There is no historical record indicating that Ali indeed slept over in the village.

The Khalis district houses the Mujahedin-e Khalq (PMOI, MEK, MKO) in Camp Ashraf. They are currently being protected by the U.S. military and Bulgarian Army, on Forward Operating Base Grizzly. Ashraf City residents are all considered as "protected persons," under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Mohammad Abdus Salam,NI, SPk (Urdu: محمد عبد السلام, pronounced English pronunciation: /əbd̪ʊs səlɑm/, (29 January 1926 – 21 November 1996) was a Pakistani theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate in Physics for his work on the electroweak unification of the electromagnetic and weak forces. Salam, Sheldon Glashow and Steven Weinberg shared the 1979 Nobel prize for this discovery. Salam holds the distinction of being the first Pakistani and the first Muslim Nobel Laureate to receive the prize in the sciences.

Salam was a science advisor to the Government of Pakistan from 1960 till 1974, a position from which he played a major and influential role in Pakistan's science infrastructure. Salam was responsible for not only major development and contribution in theoretical and particle physics, but as well as promoting scientific research at maximum level in his country. Salam was the founding director of Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO), and responsible for the establishment of the Theoretical Physics Group (TPG) in Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC). As Science Advisor, Salam played an integral role in Pakistan's development of peaceful use of nuclear energy, and directed the research on development of atomic bomb project of Pakistan in 1972; for this, he is viewed as the "scientific father" of this programme in the views of the scientists who researched under his scientific umbrella. In 1974, Salam left Pakistan in protest when Pakistan Parliament controversially passed a parliamentary bill declaring Ahmadiyya Muslim Community as Non-Muslims. Even after his death, Salam remained one of the most influential scientists in his country. In 1998, following the country's nuclear tests, the Government of Pakistan issued a commemorative stamp, as a part of "Scientists of Pakistan", to honour the services of Salam.