Poll: Afghan Pessimism For War Varies by Region
VOA News 06 December 2010
A new poll shows Afghans in one of the country's most violent provinces have the most confidence in the ability of coalition forces, as a growing number of others feel militant attacks on U.S. and other coalition troops are justified.
The poll shows overall confidence in the security situation in Helmand province jumped from 14 percent in 2009 to 67 percent.
The results are the opinions of 1,691 adults in Afghanistan's 34 provinces, who were interviewed by the Washington Post, ABC News, the BBC and ARD television of Germany in collaboration with the Afghan Center for Socio-Economic and Opinion Research.
Almost 30 percent of Afghans say insurgent attacks on foreign forces are justified, though support for the Taliban remains weak.
Overall, favorable views of the U.S., ratings of U.S. performance, confidence in its ability to provide security and support for its presence has dropped or matched previous lows.
More than half of Afghans believe coalition forces should leave the country by mid-2011 or earlier.
The margin of error was 3.5 percentage points.
The survey comes days before U.S. President Barack Obama's administration is set to release a progress report on the war in Afghanistan.
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