Hat tip Instapundit.
(AP) - The survey was conducted last month for the U.S.-based Terror Free Tomorrow organization. According to the poll results only 24 percent of Pakistanis approved of bin Laden when the survey was conducted last month, compared with 46 percent during a similar survey in August.
Backing for al-Qaida, whose senior leaders are believed to be hiding along the Pakistani-Afghan border, fell to 18 percent from 33 percent.
Support for the Taliban, whose Pakistani offshoots have seized control of much of the lawless border area and have been engaged in a growing war against security forces, dropped by half to 19 percent from 38 percent, the results said.
Terror Free Tomorrow is a bipartisan group seeking to reduce support for international terrorism. Its advisory board includes likely Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain and Lee Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman who helped lead a study of White House Iraq policy last year. The groupÂ’s president, Ken Ballen, says the advisory board plays no role in individual polls.
The survey, based on interviews with 1,157 people across Pakistan from Jan. 19-29, had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
To put that in some perspective, that means OBL has gone from being less popular than George Bush, to being less popular than the Democratic-led Congress. (Correction, my mistake: OBL had higher numbers than Bush, but spent the last few months in freefall, now at Congressional depths Â… AQ overall has dropped from sub-Bush to sub-Congress.* In any case, Paks clearly are not happy with OBL and AQÂ’s conduct of the Global Jihad on Infidelism). |