(2006-08-23) — The latest poll of al Qaeda members worldwide shows that 91 percent see no link between the global fight against Islamic terrorists and the ongoing U.S. effort to establish a free and democratic Iraq.

The results follow release of a New York Times/CBS News poll showing 51 percent of Americans also fail to see the connection.

“The al Qaeda public is simply not buying President Bush’s argument that a free Iraq will make the world more secure by denying safe-haven to terrorists,” said an unnamed spokesman for al-Razmuhsan, the polling division of al-Jazeera. “Our survey shows that the average al Qaeda man on the street is much like the average American. He has no fear that Islamic fascists plan to use Iraq as a base from which to fight their jihad to establish a global Muslim caliphate.”

In other results that parallel U.S. public opinion, the poll shows that the overwhelming majority of al Qaeda members think that “planting the seeds of democracy in the Arab world” is not worth the cost in American lives and money, and most believe that a hasty retreat of American forces will not embolden the terrorists.

The al-Razmuhsan poll was conducted over the past three weeks in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Iraq, Indonesia, Great Britain, Russia, France and the U.S., by contacting al Qaeda cell leaders via satellite phone or donkey courier.

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