Arab youth are less concerned about the rise of the Islamic State, an Islamist militant group which has captured whole sections of Iraq and Syria and has carried out several terror attacks on Western cities, according to the results of a new survey.
The results of the 2017 Arab Youth Survey, which was released on Wednesday, found that 61 percent of respondents believed Daesh – another name for the Islamic State group - had become significantly weaker over the last year. This is compared to 77 percent who held the same view in last year’s survey.
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The survey was carried out from February 7 to March 7 earlier this year and conducted using 3,500 face-to-face interviews with Arab males and females aged between 18 and 24 years from 16 Arab countries. It was commissioned by the public relations firm ASDA’A Burson Marsteller and conducted by international polling firm Penn Schoen Berland.
The Islamist militant group of Daesh had two years ago declared a caliphate in Iraq and Syria, where it controlled large swaths of lands. However, it has been losing ground in both countries to a United States-led armed coalition that has made significant advances on the group, including in its Syrian stronghold of Raqqa.
Only 36 percent of the respondents in the Arab Youth Survey 2017 said they were “very concerned” about the rise of Daesh, down from 50 percent in 2016 and 44 percent in 2015.
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Respondents said unemployment and the rise of Daesh were the biggest obstacles facing the Middle East respectively.
Some 13 percent of respondents said military action and educational reform should be at the top of their governments’ strategies to fight against young people being recruited by groups like Daesh.
The survey was conducted on Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestinian territories, Tunisia and Yemen along with the sic Gulf Cooperation council countries of the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, Yemen and Kuwait.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) maintained its attractiveness status in the eyes of many Arab youngsters as 35 percent of the survey’s respondents chose the UAE as a country they would like to live in, up from 22 percent who said so last year.
The Arab world’s business and shopping hub was praised for being safe, having a promising, growing economy and a wide array of job opportunities, according to the survey results.
