The House of Representatives recently passed a legislation which will triple non-military aid to Pakistan in order to prevent terrorism from growing and thwart further attacks in the region, reports The Economic Times. President Obama will have to report annually to Congress on the counter-terrorism measures implemented against Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and other terrorist groups in the country.

The legislation guarantees that the US will give 7.5 billion dollars over the next five years to support democratic institutions, strengthen public diplomacy, combat militant extremism, and promote a better understanding of US policies in the region.

"Terrorists currently sheltered in Pakistan's lawless hinterlands are plotting to attack the United States. This legislation helps give Pakistan the tools to defeat Al-Qaeda," said Congressman Howard L. Berman, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Yet an overwhelming majority of Pakistanis strongly continue to reject US aid to Pakistan, remarks Jane Perlez for The New York Times. According to a recent survey conducted by the Washington-based International Republican Institute (IRI), Pakistanis jettison America as a partner to fight militancy in their own country. The results of the survey shed light on the many challenges faced by the Obama Administration in its efforts to combat Islamic militancy.

Perlez comments that the findings "confirm the persistent strand of anti-American discourse in Pakistan in the last few years," coinciding with virulent attacks in the Pakistani media against the American Embassy in Islamabad for hiring private security firms to protect American diplomats. Although the amount to be appropriated by Congress in the current legislation is a threefold increase, Pakistanis still protest that the aid is insufficient.

Survey analysts explain that the most disturbing aspect of the findings "was the significant increase in the rejection of the United States as a partner in the war against Islamic militants." According to the poll, 80 percent of the respondents said they were opposed to US assistance in Pakistan's fight against terrorism, which translates as a 19 percent increase since the last survey in March 2009.

Finally, 76 percent of respondents declared they are opposed to any partnership with the US on missile attacks against extremists, which have been underway for years in tribal areas.

"Most Pakistanis are exposed to the popular media and to extremist clerics who provide this perception," comments Kamran Khan, a prominent journalist and television anchor in Pakistan. "The American side of the story is not available to the people."

Involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan has fueled the perception of America as "an occupying force... moving unilaterally against Muslim nations," continues Khan. It appears that Obama's popularity has done little to alter these views.

Special Representative to Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke aims to bolster America's standing in Pakistan through his recent initiative to overhaul public diplomacy in the region. Perlez notes, "The new effort included spending about $30 million on educational and cultural exchanges between Pakistan and the United States, and providing more Fulbright scholarships for Pakistanis to study at American universities."

In the IRI survey, face-to-face interviews were conducted from July 15 to August 7 with 4,900 adults throughout the four provinces, excluding areas in the North-West Frontier Province and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, reports The Peninsula.

The survey concludes that anti-American trends persist despite the positive image of the Obama Administration and the prospect of a substantial increase in US aid, posing problems for American efforts to tamp down Islamic militancy in the strategically vital nation.

Furthermore, Pakistani's political opposition and military leaders there sharply criticized a new US assistance plan as interfering with the country's sovereignty, according to the Washington Post. Pakistani officials have objected to provisions that require US monitoring of everything from how they spend the money to the way the military promotes senior officers.

"Obviously, it demonstrates we've still got work to do," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said of the Pakistani criticism. A senior US military official said that the relationship with Pakistan is "still positive" but that "we need to understand the sensitivities better." The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. Some Pakistani media have railed US aid conditions as unacceptable and offensive.