Former Miss Iraq threatened days after Instagram star's murder

An Iraqi fashion model and former beauty queen on Monday said she had received death threats, just days after a prominent Iraqi social media star was gunned down in Baghdad.

Former Miss Iraq Shimaa Qassem - who has 2.7 million followers on Instagram - said during a tearful live video that she had received a message saying "you are next", just days after the killing of Tara Fares on Thursday.

Fares, 22, was gunned down by two men on a motorcycle in Baghdad on Thursday in broad daylight.

Qassem said Iraqi women who had made a name for themselves on social media faced being "slaughtered like chickens".

During the video she described Fares as a "martyr".

A spate of recent killings of prominent women in Iraq has sent shockwaves through the country.

Fares' death came just two days after human rights activist and mother of four Soad al-Ali, 46, was killed in the southern Iraqi city of Basra.

She had been a prominent activist and was involved in protests in Basra against failing government services and water contamination that sent tens of thousands to hospital.

In August, the managers of Baghdad's two most high profile aesthetic and plastic surgery centres died in mysterious circumstances. 

The first was Rafif al-Yassiri, whose nickname was Barbie - the same name as her business venture. 

A week later Rasha al-Hassan, founder of the Viola Beauty Centre, was also found dead.

Both were found at their homes, and despite ongoing investigations, the causes of their deaths remain undetermined.

Women's rights group Amal said last week that the "recent assassinations are threatening messages sent to activists in particular, but also to the whole of society."

"Attacking women who are public figures is a bid to force them to shut themselves away at home", the group said.