Campaign Now Says Barak Hussein Obama Never a Practicing Muslim Despite Claims of Childhood Friends and Teachers

While CNN proved false the claims that Senator Barak Hussein Obama had been raised in a radical Islamic madrassa, today, the LA Times reports that his childhood friends and teachers report that as a boy Obama was registered as a Muslim, studied the Koran in a Muslim school, and prayed at the local mosque.

In a statement to The Times on Wednesday, March 14, the campaign offered this statement: "Obama has never been a practicing Muslim. The statement added that as a child, Obama had spent time in the neighborhood's Islamic center. This is a departure from the earlier statement made by the Obama campaign on January 24. "To be clear, Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian who attends the United Church of Christ in Chicago.

In Senator Obama's two books, "Dreams From My Father" and "The Audacity of Hope," he wrote that he spent two years in a Muslim school and another two years in a Catholic school while living in Indonesia from age 6 to 10. Islam is Indonesia's dominant religion. Approximately 88% of the population of Indonesia is Muslim, making it the most populous Muslim-majority nation in the world. Indonesia has seen a dramatic rise in radical Islam in recent years.

Today, the LA Times reports that a childhood friend of Obama's claims that he did attend Friday prayers at the mosque--

The childhood friends say Obama sometimes went to Friday prayers at the local mosque. "We prayed but not really seriously, just following actions done by older people in the mosque. But as kids, we loved to meet our friends and went to the mosque together and played, said Zulfin Adi, who describes himself as among Obama's closest childhood friends.

"His mother often went to the church, but Barry was Muslim. He went to the mosque," Adi said. "I remember him wearing a sarong.

Additionally, the LA Times recounts statements made by Barak Obama's third- and fourth-grade teacher--