If you haven't heard the name, Salam Pax is an Iraqi blogger whose identity has been the subject of varied and sundry conspiracy theories (Salam's a CIA mole, an Iraqi interrogator, a defense department creation, etc.), and several articles. One of the articles was a piece in the New Yorker that revealed a few personal details, and when Salam stopped blogging for a week, he was feared deadthe victim, perhaps, of one of Saddam's henchmen. War reporter Peter Maass (NYT Mag), upon returning from Baghdad last Wednesday, read an article about Salam and realized that the Baghdad blogger had been his interpreter. Coincidentally, he had brought a couple of issues of the New Yorker with him to Iraq, which Salam, who had been trained as an architect, devoured with great interestparticularly the pieces on Libeskind's WTC design. Salam says what everyone's thinking about New Yorker stories: "They go on and on. They start in one place, go somewhere else, then to another place. They are, like, endless."
Salam Pax Is Real - How do I know Baghdad's famous blogger exists? He worked for me. [Slate]