Washington, June 04: Osama bin Laden is more popular than US President George W Bush in over 20 countries in the Arab and Muslim world, a recent survey shows, in signs that US is losing the propaganda war against the chief of al Qaeda terror network. The survey conducted by the Pew Global Attitudes Project has asked people from these countries to rate the comparative popularity of Bush and Osama bin Laden.

The survey in 20 countries and in the Palestinian territories, with a margin of error of plus 4 points, showed that the ratings for Bush in the Palestinian territories were 1 percent against 71 per cent for bin Laden.

The US leader fared poorly in popularity in many countries against Osama, including in Morocco (2:49), Jordan (1:55), Indonesia (8:58) and Turkey (8:15).

The only Arab countries where Bush outscored bin Laden were Kuwait (62:19), liberated from Iraq by the US in the 1991 Gulf War, and Lebanon (17:14). Lebanon has a large Christian population.

Bureau Report