A gunman on a motorbike shot dead a well-known Iraqi social media influencer known as Om Fahad outside her Baghdad home on Friday, Iraqi security officials told AFP.

The unidentified attacker shot Om Fahad in her car in the Zayouna district, a security official said, requesting anonymity because he was not cleared to speak to the media.

Another security source said the attacker appeared to have pretended to be making a food delivery.

Security camera footage aired by Iraqi TV showed the assailant arriving on a motorbike and then on foot approaching the black SUV where she was said to be sitting. The shooter opens the driver’s door and fires shots into the vehicle, then flees.

Iraq’s interior ministry said it would set up a team to investigate the shooting. There have been arrests so far.

Om Fahad, whose legal name was Ghufran Sawadi, had become known for light-hearted TikTok videos of herself dancing to Iraqi music and wearing tight-fitting clothes. She had nearly half a million followers on her account.

Sawadi was in a feud with another social media influencer, Dalia Naeem, known as the “Iraqi Barbie.” The spat was said to have escalated recently, with Naeem threatening to expose an alleged “relationship” with senior Iraqi officials, according to local reports cited by Western media outlets

In February 2023, a court sentenced Sawadi to six months in jail for sharing “videos containing indecent speech that undermines modesty and public morality.”

Five other Iraqi content creators also received prison sentences last year for similar offenses.

Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, an independent Geneva-based group, said at the time that “Iraqi authorities’ detention and conviction of several social media content creators on vague charges that do not justify the restriction of natural rights is extremely concerning.”

The Iraqi government launched a campaign last year to clean up social media content that it said breached Iraqi “morals and traditions.”

An interior ministry committee was established to scour TikTok, YouTube and other platforms for clips it deemed offensive.

Several influencers have since been arrested, according to authorities.

Despite years of war and sectarian conflict after the 2003 United States invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein, Iraq has returned to a semblance of normality.

But civil liberties — for women, sexual minorities and other groups — remain constrained in the conservative society.

In 2018, model and influencer Tara Fares was shot dead by gunmen in Baghdad.