WASHINGTON, Sept 19: The number of Muslims around the world who say suicide attacks are acceptable has fallen sharply in the past six years, as has Muslims’ confidence in Osama bin Laden, a survey by a US think tank showed on Thursday.

But, the Pew Research Centre warned in its Global Attitudes Project that significant minorities of Muslims in eight countries surveyed continue to endorse suicide bombings and support the Al Qaeda leader.

In Lebanon, the number of Muslims who said suicide attacks could be justified often or sometimes in defence of Islam fell by 42 per cent between 2002 to this year, the study showed.

But although down sharply from 74 per cent six years ago, one in three Muslims in Lebanon still backed suicide attacks.

In Pakistan, support for suicide bombings has fallen by 28 per cent to a scant five per cent in the past six years.

In Jordan, support has dropped 18 points since 2002, but a quarter of Jordanian Muslims still support suicide attacks.

Even though numbers have fallen by 15 per cent in six years, around 10 per cent in Indonesia continue to support suicide attacks.

Nigeria, where around half the population is Muslim, also saw a 15 per cent drop in support, but that left nearly one-third still in support of the deadly tactic.Turkey and Tanzania saw drop in support for suicide bombings of 10 and six points respectively since 2002.

Support in Turkey, which has been rocked by several deadly attacks in recent years, was the lowest of any of the countries surveyed, with only three per cent telling Pew pollsters in March and April that they back suicide bombings.

In Egypt, support for suicide bombings rose by five per cent between 2007 and 2008; Egyptians were not surveyed in 2002.

Large numbers of Muslims in the eight countries also said they had lost confidence in Osama to do the right thing in world affairs, although support for the Al Qaeda leader remained high in some countries.

That was the case in Nigeria in particular, where nearly six in 10 Muslims expressed confidence in Osama, around the same percentage as five years ago.

Support for Osama fell from nearly six in 10 Muslims in Indonesia and nearly half in Pakistan in 2003 to a still sizeable but significantly lower number of around one-third today.

In contrast, only two per cent of Lebanese Muslims expressed a lot or some confidence in Osama, down from 20 per cent in 2003, and in Turkey, the percentage was three per cent this year compared with 15 per cent five years ago.

The most dramatic drop in support for Osama was seen among Jordanian Muslims, whereas six in 10 of them had expressed confidence in the Al Qaeda leader just three years ago, only 19 per cent did this year.

The Pew Global Attitudes Project is a series of worldwide public opinion surveys covering a broad array of subjects ranging from people’s assessments of their own lives to their views about the current state of the world.—AFP