Iraqi TikTok Star Umm Fahad Fatally Shot in Anti-LGBTQ Attack as Crackdown Intensifies

Ghufran Sawadi, an influential Iraqi social media figure with over half a million TikTok followers known as Umm Fahad, was fatally shot outside her home in Baghdad on Friday night. The attack occurred in the Zayouna area east of the capital and was captured by surveillance cameras before being shared widely online.
The video shows a gunman riding a motorcycle shooting Sawadi at close range, killing her instantly. A police source confirmed to CNN that this footage is authentic. Iraq’s Interior Minister announced on Friday that authorities were forming an investigative team in response to the incident.
Sawadi was popular for posting dance videos set to pop music while wearing form-fitting clothing on TikTok. Previously, some of these clips had been deemed indecent by Iraqi courts. In 2019, Sawadi received a six-month prison sentence for “producing and publishing several films and videos containing obscene and indecent language that violated public decency and morals.”
Other social media personalities in Iraq have previously become the victims of fatal attacks as part of anti-LGBTQ efforts by local authorities. Most recently, Noor Alsaffar – a popular TikTok personality known as Noor BM with over 370,000 followers on Instagram and Tiktok – was killed in Baghdad last September. She shared short videos about fashion, makeup, and hair care while dancing to music.
Following the news of Alsaffar’s death, some users left condolences, whereas others celebrated her killing, hailing it as a just punishment for expressing herself freely online. The crackdown on LGBTQ expression in Iraq has intensified over recent months with authorities moving towards criminalizing such behavior under law.
CNN reporters Aqeel Najim from Baghdad, Nechirvan Mando from Erbil and Duarte Mendonca from London contributed to this article.