WASHINGTON, April 25: Large majorities in Muslim countries want US military forces out of the Middle East, says an opinion survey released this week.

Steven Kull, director of the University of Maryland’s Programme on International Policy Attitudes, which conducted the survey, said “a more disturbing finding is the substantial support for attacks on US troops operating in the region”.

Substantial numbers in Pakistan, Egypt, Morocco and Indonesia favoured attacks on US troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, and in the Persian Gulf.

An average of 74 per cent respondents in the four countries supported the goal of getting the United States to “remove its bases and military forces from all Islamic countries,” ranging from 64 per cent in Indonesia to 92 per cent in Egypt.

The survey also showed a disturbingly low awareness of international issues in Pakistan’s rural areas. While urban and rural people were polled in Morocco, Indonesia and Pakistan, the survey didn’t report findings from rural Pakistan because people there were unfamiliar with many of the issues in the survey, according to the pollsters.

Conducted between Dec 9 and Feb 15 using in-home interviews, the survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, except for Pakistan, where the margin is 4 points.

Many were also unconvinced that Al Qaeda committed the Sept 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The study surveyed more than 4,000 people in the four Muslim countries. The findings, released in Washington, showed a vast majority of the Muslims surveyed feel undermining their religion is a key goal of US foreign policy.

At least 73 per cent people in Indonesia, Morocco and Pakistan and a shocking 92 per cent in Egypt, the strongest US ally in the Middle East, believed the United States seeks to “weaken and divide the Islamic world.” Further, an average of 64 per cent said the United States also aimed to “spread Christianity in the region.”

The survey indicates that the majority of respondents in these countries are opposed to violence against civilians and terrorist tactics of Al Qaeda. Three quarters also had favourable feelings about globalisation and overall 67 per cent agreed that “a democratic political system” is a good method of governing their countries.

An average of only 13 per cent of respondents in Pakistan, Egypt and Morocco said the primary US goal was to “protect itself from terrorist attacks”. The results in Indonesia were somewhat less negative where 23 per cent selected this option.

Only 28 per cent of Egyptians, 26 per cent of Indonesians, 35 per cent of Moroccans and 2 per cent of urban Pakistanis said they believed Al Qaeda was behind 9/11. Thirty-eight per cent of Egyptians blamed the United States or Israel for the attacks, as did 20 per cent of Indonesians, 31 per cent of Moroccans and 28 percent of urban Pakistanis.

An average of two out of three respondents named “expanding the geographic borders of Israel” as a third major US policy objective in the Middle East.

By contrast, less than one in four agreed that Washington wanted to create “an independent and economically viable Palestinian state”.