doing, Al Jazeera had a big advantage in a historical event, eight hours ahead of a French Channel and a day ahead of CNN (1) . After its coverage of “Operation Desert Fox” in Iraq in 1998 and the Kosovo war in 1999, both of which got Al Jazeera into the swing of competing with international news channels, a decision was made in 2000 to establish a bureau in Afghanistan. The establishment of that bureau showed the ability of Al Jazeera’s management to predict and properly plan for possible future events, as the significance of this de- cision materialised later on. Tayseer Allouni, who was appointed to lead the bureau, sums up the motives behind the idea, “I, myself, asked high-ranking management officials about the reason behind opening a bureau in Kabul, and the answer was as follows, he recalls. “under the Taliban government that was only recognised by three countries and not recognised by the United Nations, Afghanistan brought together a large number of Arabs, who were pursued and persecuted in their coun- tries, all of whom were Islamists and almost all of whom belonged to jihadist movements. This country is a powder keg that will explode one day. We at Al Jazeera want to be there when that explosion oc- curs” (2) . That mind-set was prevalent at Al Jazeera well before the 9/11 attacks that triggered the imminent events, thereby rendering Afghani- stan the epicentre and making logistical arrangements for the operation of the Kabul bureau. The technical team had taken into consideration the working conditions in a city isolated from the world. Thus, the bu- reau was provided with additional stand-by equipment at the rate of one supplementary for each device used in anticipation of malfunctions. In addition, during its coverage of the second Palestinian Intifada (2000- 2005), Al Jazeera used creative thinking to reach unconventional solu- tions. One of the problems encountered was that the Israeli army was strict about granting permits to journalists, especially the Palestinians carrying Israeli IDs, to allow their movement in the West Bank. Walid Al-Omari, the bureau chief in the West Bank, had to use donkeys as a means of transportation to avoid dozens of military checkpoints on the
(1) Jamal Demloj, Asnam Sahebat al-Jalala (Her Majesty’s Idols) (Beirut: Saer Al Mashrek, 2013), pp. 96-97.
(2) Tayseer Allouni, personal interview, December 2020.
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