(MCT) ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Two days before parliamentary elections, a suicide car bomber… (MCT) ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Two days before parliamentary elections, a suicide car bomber attacked members of Benazir Bhutto’s opposition party Saturday at an election office in Parachinar in northwest Pakistan, killing at least 37 people and wounding dozens more.

A second car bombing near a checkpoint in the volatile Northwest Frontier Province killed two civilians and wounded security officials.

The government has said it sent 80,000 soldiers to troubled sites across the country in time for Monday’s elections, but opposition party members who feel targeted largely blame the government of embattled President Pervez Musharraf for not providing enough security.

“It’s terrorist activity,” said Shazia Tehmas Khan, a candidate who is running for Bhutto’s party for a provincial seat in the northwest on the ticket of Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party. “It’s to scare voters and it’s to scare people away from democracy.”

Bushra Gohar, an official with the Awami Nationalist Party, said militants could be behind the attacks. But the blasts could also be part of government rigging, she said.

Election workers from her party and that of the PPP have also been arrested in Peshawar, she said.

She fears it is having the desired effect on voters.

“You see fear in the faces of people,” said Gohar, who has been campaigning in Peshawar. “How are people going to come out [and vote] if this thing continues.” – Noreen S. Ahmed-Ullah, Chicago Tribune

(MCT) BAGHDAD – U.S.-allied fighters in a second Iraqi province have quit working with American troops after two incidents this week in which U.S. soldiers killed militia members.

Citizen brigades in the province of Babil, south of Baghdad, quit work after three members were killed by U.S. forces Friday, a local police spokesman said.

Another high-profile fatal incident occurred in the same province just more than two weeks ago. In that time span, 19 citizen militia members have been killed and 12 wounded by U.S. forces nationwide, said the police spokesman, Capt. Muthanna Ahmed.

The action in Babil province follows a strike by citizen brigades members in Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad, that has gone on for more than a week. The citizen militias allege the local police chief leads a death squad and seek his removal, among other demands.

A U.S. military spokesman on Saturday downplayed the recent events and said they have little impact on the more than 83,000-member largely Sunni Muslim movement, known as the Awakening Movement.

Maj. Brad Leighton called the recent events “unfortunate accidents” but said there wasn’t any trend or underlying issue to connect the incidents. – Steve Lannen, McClatchy Newspapers

(MCT) LONDON – Facebook, the immensely popular social networking site on the Internet, may have been invented by university students in the United States, but it has been taken up with particular fervor by inquiring young Muslims in Britain.

In Britain, discussion groups with names like East London Muslims, Bold Brave Liberal Muslim Girls and Proud 2 Be Muslim multiply each week.

Academic researchers say Facebook and other social networking sites could yield valuable insights into how young British Muslims form their cultural identity and where they see themselves fitting into a Western society that often views them with hostility and suspicion.

James Beckford, a sociologist at the University of Warwick, said that because Islam does not have a clear organizational structure, the Internet had become “a wonderful device [for linking] Muslims around the world, especially Muslims in diaspora.”

For diaspora Muslims, the Internet may be replacing the mosque as the thread that binds the community together.

A survey conducted by the Federation of Student Islamic Associations in Britain shortly after the July 7, 2005, terror attacks on London’s transportation system found that only 2 percent of the respondents said the mosque was their primary source of religious knowledge; 7 percent cited the local imam and 20 percent said they turned to their parents first.

The vast majority of students cited “books, videos, the Internet and informal study groups” as their main source of religious information.

In the U.S., use of Facebook among young Muslims also is increasing, said Zahid Bukhari, who studies American Muslims at Georgetown University’s Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. Reasons for the surge in America are similar to those cited by young British Muslims, including fast and easy access to the greater Muslim community and freedom to ask religious or cultural questions without fear of embarrassment.

But Bukhari said there were subtle differences in the Facebook phenomenon in the United States. The wide diversity of American Muslims makes cultural questions a hotter topic here, he said. While most Muslims in Britain hail from India and Pakistan, Bukhari said American Muslims come from 80 different countries. That makes for varied cultural complications to interpreting the faith. – Tom Hundley and Margaret Ramirez, Chicago Tribune

(MCT) FUKUI, Japan – The city of Obama in Fukui Prefecture, Japan, prompted by the fact its name is spelled and pronounced identically to that of U.S. politician Barack Obama, is enthusiastically supporting the Democratic senator’s campaign for his party’s presidential nomination.

Since it was reported on the Internet that local residents had formed a volunteer group supporting the Illinois senator’s campaign, the city, located on the coast of the Sea of Japan, has attracted massive attention from overseas media.

In the hope of raising the city’s profile, the Obama municipal government decided to send their namesake a special good-luck daruma doll to wish him victory in the race.

The group supporting Obama’s White House bid was formed by 16 citizens shortly before the Super Tuesday primaries Feb. 5.

Campaign posters bearing the politician’s image or the slogan “Ganbare Obama!” (Go, Obama!) were put up at local hotels.

The group also plans to start a website to promote Obama’s presidential campaign and sell buns featuring his likeness. – The Yomiuri Shimbun