Iraqi citizens in al-'Amil district west of Baghdad lit candles after sunset last evening, said prayers and, for the second consecutive night, quietly protested against terrorism in Iraq, an online dispatch bravely reported Oct. 5.

An English-language report from a courageous American journalist in the field, where children were killed earlier by terrorist thugs at a celebration for the opening of a water plant? No. It is commentary and news reported by a trio of Iraqi brothers -- a doctor and two dentists living in Basra, Baghdad and Samawa City, in southwestern Iraq -- on their famed blog, Iraqthemodel.blogspot.com.

That Web log and reportedly 60 others are bringing to light events and public opinion in Iraq that are not commonly being aired in the conventional media in the United States and elsewhere.

While American bloggers have challenged the veracity of major media reports, their Iraqi counterparts are creating a true, free press, online, in their homeland, for the first time in that country's modern history, using Internet technology. The blogs are getting 3,000 to 6,000 visits per day -- up to 200,000 visitors per month -- their producers told United Press International.

This media technology is being used as outreach to tell the world their story, said David Abel, editor and general manager of PoliticsOnline, and publisher of NetPulse and PoliTicker reports, which tracks online political campaigns.

The Iraqi efforts appear to be self-funded, as sites like Iraqthemodel are selling T-shirts, mugs, bumper stickers and more online, according to an ad on the site.

A number of Iraqi blogs are making a name for themselves -- The Messopotamian.blogspot.com, HealingIraq.blogspot.com and Hammorabi.blogspot.com, along with Iraqthemodel. They are published by professionals, who identify themselves only by their first names on the sites, for fear of reprisals by terrorists or Baathist remnants.

They are educated and they speak and write in English -- the language of the Internet, Abel told UPI.

One blogger, who goes by the pen name of Ali, told UPI he launched Iraqthemodel on Nov. 14, 2003, along with his brothers.

Our main motive was that we saw that media coverage of the Iraqi issue was biased and sometimes full of lies, said Ali, a 34-year-old medical resident in pediatrics, who is married and a 1995 graduate of Baghdad University. We wanted to reach as many people as possible and try to correct their information, as this is a media war too, not just a gun battle, he told UPI.

Ali said the number of readers of his site is steadily rising and has held the 200,000 monthly average since last June. The scope of the blog has changed somewhat during its first year in existence.

We started by posting our thoughts and comments on the news, but a good amount of our writing is reporting about events on the ground and personal experiences, Ali said.

Though many in the U.S. media are skeptical that elections can be held next January in some parts of Iraq, as planned by the Bush administration, Ali reported Oct. 2 that many citizens in Fallujah stated that they would be willing to participate in the upcoming elections.

Another blogger, Zeyad, founder of HealingIraq.blogspot.com, told UPI he launched his project Oct. 18, 2003, because there were very few Iraqi blogs back then -- now there are more than 60.

He said freedom of thought was not something he was used to under Saddam Hussein.

It was a strange experience to be able to express one's views without the fear of censorship or retribution, Zeyad said.

He said, like Iraqthemodel, his site receives from 3,000 to 6,000 hits per day and he frequently reports news that no one else -- particularly in the West -- reports about Iraq.

I did reporting, for instance, on the large demonstrations against terrorism last December, which went unreported by the international and local media, Zeyad said.

He also provides insightful analysis not found in the international media -- given from the perspective of someone on the ground in Iraq.

I have to shed light on something that has been bothering me for quite some time, Zeyad wrote in a blog comment, posted Sept. 16. Events over the last six months or so seem to indicate a developing pattern of violence in Iraq. Simply put, when there is a surge of violence in the south, it completely ceases in other areas of Iraq, and vice versa. In other words, whenever Sadr takes a rest, Zarqawi comes into action again.

HealingIraq also has published photos that have not appeared elsewhere, he said. Nevertheless, the bloggers seem to have a sense of accomplishment that their writing and reporting are being heard in the United States.

It is good to make a wave which can be visible from far away, Sam, a blogger who runs Hammorabi, told UPI.

A report on his site Oct. 4 indicated that Dutch troops, who are participating in the coalition -- led by the United States and the United Kingdom in Iraq -- have received many threats to kill them, up to the top level. ... Some of these threats came as telephone calls to their private phones or as messages inside their mobile phones or to their e-mails.

The site reported that these threats were coming not only from Iraq, but from Germany and the Netherlands, too, from sources who are promising to kill the relatives of Dutch troops.

The nature of the recent attacks in Iraq point to the same thing about the existence of strong intelligence and spies for the terrorists inside the Iraqi government, and perhaps the coalition forces, per the report on Hammorabi.

One of the technology tools that has made blogging so popular is called Really Simple Syndication, or RSS. The technology is based on Extensible Markup Language, or XML, originally developed for e-commerce applications. RSS is used to describe data about Web sites -- titles, links and a description of the contents. That is what enables Yahoo.com, the search directory, to provide links to the blogs easily.

In addition to providing accurate news about the situation on the ground in Iraq, the blogs also provide a way for Americans to e-mail the Iraqis and talk about the war.

Remember when you were in grade school and had your first pen pal? asked Ross Mayfield, chief executive officer of Socialtext Inc., a developer of enterprise social software in Silicon Valley. It probably showed you that you can communicate, the world is bigger than your neighborhood, and that there were real people, like you, living in different worlds, he told UPI. International blogs are like that -- they foster a deeper understanding between people than the media alone. Content can turn into conversation and even relationships.

A weekly series by UPI examining the global telecommunications phenomenon known as the World Wide Web. E-mail [email protected]