Pakistanis' views on the Taliban have shifted dramatically in the past year, with 70 percent now opposing the militants, according to a new poll. The United States does not fare well, either, with 64 percent of Pakistanis seeing Washington as an enemy.
The mounting unpopularity of the Taliban coincides with an explosion of militant violence in Pakistan as more than 2,500 people have been killed since the start of 2008. Pew Global Attitudes, a project of a non-partisan research centre, based in Washington, released the poll on Thursday.
It conducted face-to-face interviews with 1,254 adult Pakistanis in late May and early June, mostly in urban areas. It conducts a similar poll each year. In 2008, 27 percent of Pakistanis surveyed had a favourable view of the Taliban, and 33 percent saw them unfavourably. The rest had no opinion.
A year later, only 10 percent approved of the Taliban. Some 70 percent disapproved, more than double, than in 2008. The numbers for al Qaeda followed a similar sinking trajectory, with support for the terrorist network at just 9 percent. However, the US was only slightly more popular than the Taliban.
Nearly two-thirds, 64 percent, viewed America as an enemy while only 9 percent described it as a partner, even though the US is Pakistan's biggest donor, and the two countries appear to be increasingly co-ordinating in anti-terrorist operations along the Afghan border.
Pakistan was one of only four countries, among 20 recently surveyed by Pew, that did not show sharply improved views of the US since President Barack Obama took office. In Pakistan, opinion had not changed, and it had the lowest confidence rating in the new president of any of the 20 countries, at 13 percent. One bright note for Washington: 53 percent want relations with the US to improve.
Several Pakistanis interviewed on Thursday by 'The Associated Press' (of America) said they saw no change in US policy towards Pakistan under the new administration. "Obama is like an old wine in a new bottle,' said Mohammed Zaman, 45, a lawyer in Lahore. Those who spoke to AP(A) said increasing evidence of the Taliban's cruelty was swaying their views against the militants.
"Once I used to like them; but now I have no respect for them, because I am against killing innocent people,' said Ali Ahmad Mengal, 26, a university student in Quetta. Mengal said that some Pakistanis were at first receptive to claims by the Taliban and al Qaeda to be defenders of Islam, but now he supports Pakistan's military's recent all-out offensive against the militants. "It is the right time for crushing them.'
Pakistan's military redoubled its fight against the Taliban in April, after militants broke a peace deal and took over a district about 60 miles (100 km) from Islamabad. Government forces took back that district, and also the nearby Swat Valley.
Now the military is targeting Taliban-controlled strongholds in the north-western tribal belt, where the militants are also believed to giving shelter to al Qaeda leaders, and help plan attacks on US forces in neighbouring Afghanistan. In the latest fighting, army helicopter gunships pounded several bases near the Kurram and Aurakzai tribal areas, killing 12 people on Thursday, intelligence officials said.
Many residents of the tribal regions, whose conservative, ethnic Pashtun residents were not part of the Pew survey, also oppose the militants, but they are too afraid to express their views, according to Mujahid Hussain, 28, who lives in the Taliban-controlled town of Mir Ali in North Waziristan.