Support for Pak-US cooperation on terror up from 9% to 37%: Survey

Tuesday May 12, 2009 (1050 PST)

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ISLAMABAD: A poll by the International Republican Institute (IRI) released on Monday showed signs of a sea change over whether Pakistan should cooperate with the US in counter-terrorism – with 37 percent of people saying there should be cooperation, compared with 9 percent 15 months earlier.

The prospect of Taliban destabilising the nuclear-armed Pakistan is a global fear, but only 10 percent of Pakistanis saw terrorism as their biggest worry, according to the survey.

For the vast majority economic issues such as inflation, unemployment and poverty were a greater problem, according to the poll by the Washington-based organisation chaired by Senator John McCain.

Carried out in March, some of the survey’s results have been overtaken by the pace of events in Swat, where the army launched an offensive in recent weeks after a change in national mood as more people realised the Taliban were a threat.

Even though 69 percent of people saw the presence of Al Qaeda and the Taliban as a problem, 52 percent opposed using the army to fight extremists in the NWFP and the neighbouring tribal regions bordering Afghanistan.

The survey showed 80 percent of people supported the deal to introduce sharia in Swat and most had expected it to bring peace.

Moreover, 56 percent of the polled said they would back any future Taliban demand for sharia in cities outside the northwest, including Karachi, Quetta, Multan and Lahore.

The poll showed President Asif Ali Zardari was labouring with a lowly approval rating of just 19 percent.

Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who appeals to a religious conservative constituency and has tended to equivocate over the need to use force against the Taliban, was the most popular, with 75 percent support.

There was an intriguing split in attitudes towards India, with 45 percent having a favourable opinion of India, and 52 percent unfavourable.

There was a clean split in attitudes towards the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, with 43 percent having a favourable opinion of a group already placed on US and UN terrorist lists, and 46 percent holding an unfavourable opinion.

The poll showed 42 percent of Pakistanis believe Indian intelligence carried out the attack on Mumbai, while 20 percent thought the United States was to blame.

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