49% of Britons Oppose Assassination of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad

Local Editor

A survey carried out by YouGov for the thinktank RUSI revealed that 54% of the UK public support assassinating individual terrorists abroad, however 49% oppose assassinating Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as opposed to 27% who support it.
The poll offered various subjects in which the respondent would choose whether he/she supports or opposes assassination in such cases.

Subjects included assassination of pirates or hostage takers, terrorists overseas, terrorists in the UK, President al-Assad of Syria, and Iranian nuclear scientists, among other sub-samples.
There are interesting variations in support for assassinations across the population. In the case of pirates and hostage takers, only 47% of women favor targeted killing, as against 67% of men.

Moreover, Britons are split over whether such attacks make the west safer; 32% believe that drones boost security by facilitating the targeting of terrorists, whereas 31% believe that security is undermined.

Regarding use of drones to assassinate Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, only 27% support such measures, whereas 49% oppose. Also, 26% support targeting of Iranian nuclear scientists, while 56% oppose.

The YouGov study included six surveys between 26 February and 8 March, with a nationally representative poll of 1,966 British adults and several survey experiments looking at different scenarios, involving at least 700 respondents in each case.

Source: The Guardian UK, edited by moqawama.org