Another episode of the series of assassinations of bloggers and social media celebrities. The victim this time is (Umm Fahd), who was left dead by a silencer bullet from an unknown killer behind the wheel of her car in the center of the capital, Baghdad, last Friday evening.
This incident raised many questions about the security of the capital, which is witnessing “fragility,” weakness in procedures, and frequent assassinations. According to security observers, they called for the need to change the security leadership in Rusafa, while warning that failure to uncover the perpetrators allows these incidents to be repeated.
Director of the Accreditation Center for Security and Strategic Studies, retired Major General Imad Alo, said during an interview with “Al Aalem Al Jadeed” that “the return of assassination incidents against famous figures is a major security breach, especially since assassination operations are repeated in the same scene without any security deterrent, and this confirms the existence of fragility of security measures.”
Alo adds, “It is necessary to make changes at the level of security leaders in Baghdad, due to the recurrence of these operations and the inability to detect the perpetrators, especially since assassination incidents via motorcycles are repeated from time to time, and failure to detect the perpetrators will lead to the continuation of these crimes during the next stage.”
He continues, “The repetition of assassination incidents in this manner and without revealing them indicates that these operations are carried out according to a political agenda or various corruption issues, and this increases anxiety and terror among the Iraqi street, and thus the higher security authorities are required to take real and quick measures, especially with regard to changing security leadership.”
In a shocking scene, Friday night witnessed the killing of blogger Ghufran Mahdi Sawadi, known as “Umm Fahd,” in the Zayouna neighborhood in the center of the capital, after a gunman on a motorcycle surrounded her and was hiding in wait, before he headed towards her car, opened the door, and emptied his bullets inside, while he stole her phone, then quickly ran to his bike and fled, as surveillance cameras at the scene documented.
Activists on social media circulated pictures of the incident widely, while linking it to her recent dispute with the media personality Dalia Naeem, as Umm Fahd, the media personality Naeem, threatened to publish videos and pictures of herself and information related to leaders, politicians, and high-ranking officials in Iraq, most notably Major General Saad Maan.
At dawn on April 7, journalist Dalia Naeem was also subjected to a kidnapping attempt, the details of which have not yet become clear, but preliminary investigations indicate that the kidnappers decided to throw her from the car, where she sustained several injuries.
For his part, security expert Ahmed Al-Sharifi explained, during an interview with Al Aalem Al Jadeed, that “assassination operations are repeated in the same way and with the same security failure to uncover the perpetrators and those behind them, requiring major security measures to change within the security system, which has proven to fail in reducing Such operations, especially when they occur in areas fortified by security and followed and monitored by several cameras.”
Al-Sharifi explains, “All the reasons are related to the case of the assassination of Umm Fahd, as well as the rest of the assassinations of well-known figures on the level of social networking sites, but these reasons remain unknown due to the inability of the security authorities to reveal the details of these crimes, who is behind them, and what agenda the assassinations carry.”
He continues, “The security situation in Baghdad is fragile. Assassination operations always occur in Rusafa, as well as tribal conflicts and other organized crimes. The recent security operation in the Al-Bataween area in central Baghdad revealed the loss of security in the most important and prominent areas of Baghdad for many years without any real security measures against these gangs.”
It seems that the series of assassinations of famous bloggers and social media celebrities is continuing in Baghdad, as the killing of Umm Fahd brought to mind similar incidents that took place recently and were linked to influencers and bloggers on social media networks, the most recent of which was the killing of content creator Nour Al-Saffar, known as “Noor BM.” Shahinda also survived and her Iraqi husband, Hussein Al-Tiktoker, from an assassination attempt with 20 bullets in the Doura area south of Baghdad. This is the only case in which the perpetrator was arrested with a murder weapon, while most of those involved got away with what they did.
Before that, many influencers and famous personalities on social media were exposed to similar incidents, including the famous masseuse Tara Fares, and the mysterious deaths of Rafif Al-Yasiri and Rasha Al-Hassan in 2018.
The killer often remains unknown in these incidents, as the Ministry of Interior contented itself with issuing a statement on Friday evening, in which it announced the formation of a “specialized working team to find out the circumstances of the killing of a woman known on social media at the hands of unknown assailants in the Zayouna area of the capital, Baghdad.”
In addition, political analyst Muhammad Ali Al-Hakim explained, during an interview with Al Aalem Al Jadeed, that “all assassinations have a different political agenda, and therefore we always see that the perpetrators are not revealed and the causes of the crimes are not revealed, and the incident of the assassination of Umm Fahd will remain investigated without results, like all previous assassinations.”
Al-Hakim explains, “The assassination of Umm Fahd at this time, and with her threat to expose a system of corruption and blackmail from officers and others, raises suspicions, and this leads to ambiguity in this operation, and the perpetrator of the operation, according to the video, has experience in this field and is well trained, and he is not one of the hired killers.”
He added that “changing the officials among the leaders of the responsibility in which the assassination occurred is important, and those leaders must bear responsibility for any security failure, so that there is an emphasis on their part in handling the security file, especially since some leaders are preoccupied with non-security files and this is the reason for the fragility of the security situation.”
It is noteworthy that Ghufran Mehdi Sawadi, known as Umm Fahd, was very popular on the social networking sites “Tik Tok” and “Instagram”, where she published video clips of herself and was followed by tens of thousands of users.
In February 2023, she was sentenced to six months in prison for “publishing several films and videos containing obscene statements that violate modesty and public morals and displaying them to the public via social media sites.”
