Poll Shows Muslim Support Of Terror & Bin Laden Dwindling

Public support for Osama bin Laden and terrorist violence has dropped in several Muslim countries, but has risen in Jordan, a poll finds. The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found poll respondents' public support for bin Laden was down in the Muslim-majority countries of Indonesia, Lebanon, Morocco and Pakistan. In Turkey bin Laden had the support of 13 percent of those asked in 2002, compared with 14 percent in the latest poll. Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, suggested that people may be tiring of terrorism in these countries, reported the Christian Science Monitor. Nonetheless, there remains a pretty substantial body of support for deadly attacks in defense of Islam, according to Kohut. Only in the U.S. allies of Jordan had support for bin Laden grown significantly -- from 43 percent among respondents in 2002 to 57 percent now. Jordan's large Sunni Arab population has close ties with Iraq's Sunni minority, reported the Los Angeles Times. The poll found that support in Jordan has risen for the statement that violence against civilians to defend Islam was justified sometimes or often."