NYT: Is Syrian "Kidnapping" A Hoax?

The New York Times warns that not one person can report having actually met or spoken to the lesbian blogger allegedly kidnapped yesterday in Syria. In fact, some recent entries on her blog may have first been posted in 2007.

Although it remains possible that the blog’s author was indeed detained, and has been writing a factual, not fictional account of recent events in Syria, readers should be aware that the one person who has identified herself — to The Times, The BBC and Al Jazeera — as a personal friend of the blogger, Sandra Bagaria, has now clarified that she has never actually met the author of the Gay Girl in Damascus blog. Ms. Bagaria told The Lede that she had also never conversed with Ms. Arraf face to face via Skype, but had conducted an online relationship with her since January entirely through Internet text communications

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