'Baghdad blogger': Iraq not free

Salam Pax's online diary was read by thousands

Iraq is a still a country of indiscriminate killings which is far from achieving democracy, the "Baghdad blogger" has told a BBC News Online debate.

"Saddam may have gone but there are other things that make you worried," said 'Salam Pax', an Iraqi student, whose weblog gave the world one of the few insights into lives of ordinary Iraqis in the run-up to the US-led invasion.

"Someone could kill me on the street... we are still far from [freedom]," said the 29-year-old, whose real name has not been revealed.

In an interactive forum with BBC News Online users, he warned the coalition against spoiling the goodwill of the Shia Iraqis who have been generally more tolerant of the occupying forces than the Sunni population.

We are going through this period where excellent, beautiful and wonderful things are going to happen... 'Salam Pax' You ask the 'Baghdad blogger'

"The Shia are giving the coalition forces a better chance than central Iraq... you don't want this to change this."

The majority of people were still angry, he said, because of the tanks and people with guns on the streets.

He praised work being done in Iraq by the United Nations and NGOs but said one organisation had been threatened with having its funding withdrawn by the US Government while it investigated civilian casualties resulting from the invasion.

He described accusations that the former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction as "a good selling point for the war".

"They are trying to find anything... The first people to give themselves up were the scientists. They have them all but nothing came out of interrogating them," he said.

'Staying in Iraq'

Pax admitted that by publishing the weblog he had put himself at great risk, but said a friend at the government's internet provider told him authorities' monitoring of the internet was "not that good".

He said that despite his fame in the West he is carrying on life as normal in Baghdad because few people have heard of his diaries.

"It is still very isolated. I'm really glad there is not a big fuss about it in Baghdad."

The architecture student said he would stay in Iraq.

"We are going through this period where excellent, beautiful and wonderful things are going to happen... you want to feel you contributed," he said.

Pax's diaries have been compiled into a book - The Baghdad Blog, published by Atlantic.