(CNSNews.com) – A new poll gauging Muslims’ views on al-Qaeda a year after Osama bin Laden’s death shows small increases in support in Turkey and Pakistan since the spring of 2011, but small declines in support in Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon.

Overall, majorities of respondents in the five Islamic countries surveyed by the Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project in March and April expressed an unfavorable opinion of al-Qaeda, although 21 percent in Egypt – representing one in five people in the Arab world’s most populous country – held the contrary view.

Fifteen percent of respondents in Jordan, 13 percent in Pakistan, six percent in Turkey and two percent in Lebanon also said they had a favorable view of the terrorist organization.

Over the past year, al-Qaeda favorability increased in Turkey by two percent and in Pakistan by three percent. Favorable opinion declined since spring 2011 in Egypt by two percent, in Jordan by one percent and in Lebanon by one percent.

Pew found the highest level of uncertainty in Pakistan, where almost one-third of respondents either said they did not know or refused to answer.

Before bin Laden’s death at the hands of U.S. Navy SEALS who raided his safe house near the Pakistani capital, Pew pollsters found that levels of “confidence” in the terrorist leader among Muslims had declined steadily from 2003. Between 2010 and 2011, however, that decline either flattened out or in some cases favorable opinions began to climb slowly again – in Egypt and Pakistan by three points and in Indonesia and Lebanon by one point each.

In 2011, 34 percent of Muslims in the Palestinian territories, 26 percent in Indonesia, 22 in Egypt, 21 in Pakistan, 13 in Jordan, three in Turkey and one percent in Lebanon expressed “confidence” in bin Laden. (Nigeria was not included in the 2011 poll, but in 2010, 48 percent of Nigerian Muslim respondents expressed “confidence” in bin Laden.)

Another relevant issue polled over the past decade by Pew relates to whether suicide bombing against civilian targets is justified “to defend Islam from its enemies.”

In its spring 2011 survey, support for suicide bombings under those circumstances – among Muslim respondents only – was expressed by 68 percent in Palestinian areas, 35 percent in Lebanon, 28 percent in Egypt, 20 percent in Israel, 13 percent in Jordan, 10 percent in Indonesia, seven percent in Turkey and five percent in Pakistan.

The biggest declines recorded by Pew in “confidence in bin Laden” scores were in Indonesia between 2003 and 2005 (from 59 percent down to 36), in Jordan between 2005 and 2006 (from 61 percent down to 24) and in Pakistan between 2008 and 2009 (from 34 percent down to 18).

All three countries have themselves suffered from deadly terror attacks carried out by al-Qaeda or affiliated groups, with Pakistan particularly badly affected over the years since 2007. (copyright 1998-2012 Cybercast News Service 05/01/12)