NEW YORK: A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll shows that nearly half of all Americans (47 per cent) believe the country is less safe now than any time since the terrorist attacks of 9/11 — substantially more than the 28pc figure the same poll found last year.

However, after years of costly conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, most Americans are not eager to give up the fight against what they see as a new threat to national security.

The recent beheadings of two American journalists by IS fighters, plus this week’s events noting the 13th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of 2001, no doubt heighten a sense of concern if not fear, the report said on Sunday.

That threat is the radical, murderous group calling itself the “Islamic State”, formerly known as ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and al Sham).

The poll also found that more than six in 10 respondents believe that taking military action against IS is in the nation’s interest. While 40pc of respondents say the US military action against ISIS should be limited to air strikes, another 34pc say it should include both air strikes and combat troops.

“A very war-weary country … seems to have woken up to the real threat that ISIS may present,” Republican pollster Bill McInturff, who conducted the survey with Democratic pollster Peter Hart and his colleagues at Hart Research, said in reporting the poll results on NBC.

Published in Dawn, September 15th, 2014