BAGHDAD, Sept. 28 (Xinhua) -- Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi Friday issued instructions for the Iraqi Interior Ministry and intelligence to launch immediate investigation into recent killings of civil activists and social figures across the country.
The prime minister, also commander-in-chief of Iraqi forces, ordered the security authorities to gather information and take necessary measures within 48 hours about assassinations and kidnapping in Iraq's southern city of Basra, the capital Baghdad and others areas, said a statement by Abadi's office.
Abadi's instructions came after unidentified gunmen shot dead Tara Fares, 22, who won maid of Miss Iraq in 2014 and Miss Baghdad in 2015, on Thursday in Baghdad.
Other unknown gunmen shot dead Soad al-Ali, a female who was heading a local human rights organization on Tuesday in Basra.
Last month, Baghdad witnessed mysterious deaths of Rafif al-Yasiri, a female plastic surgeon and beauty expert, and another beauty expert Rasha al-Hassan, director of the Viola Beauty Center.
The recent incidents "give an impression that behind such planned acts, organized parties, who aimed at disturbing the security under the pretext of fighting (social) deviation, want to show the incidents as separate cases, but they do not seem so," the statement said.
