DOHA, Qatar -- TV monitors, eight on each side, flank a huge world map inside the bustling newsroom of Al-Jazeera, the Arabic-language satellite news outlet that guarantees controversy each time it broadcasts a videotape of Osama bin Laden.

"If it's newsy, we put it on the air," senior producer Ahmed A. Shouly said.

But critics, including Vice President Dick Cheney, have called the station a "platform for propaganda." On Thursday, black-clad Islamic separatists holding 600 hostages inside a Moscow theater chose Al-Jazeera for their first communiqué to the world. Blending Koranic verses with militant rhetoric, they said in a videotaped statement that they came to the Russian capital to force an end to the war in Chechnya "or gain martyrdom" trying.

Once again, Al-Jazeera led the pack on one of the world's hottest stories. And once again its scoop came in the form of a prerecorded tape shrouded in mystery.

Al-Jazeera would not comment on the Moscow tape or explain when or how the station received it. An employee said that it was received Thursday by its Moscow bureau. He said the station believed it was recorded Wednesday.

Al-Jazeera has been equally tight-lipped about the tapes of bin Laden, leader of the al-Qaida network. Shouly said that when the network had its office in Afghanistan, someone from al-Qaida would bring in the tapes. "Sometimes they've come by mail."

Question of authenticity

Efforts to authenticate the bin Laden tapes have been unscientific. A correspondent who has interviewed bin Laden listens to the tape to see if it sounds like him, Shouly said. New tapes are compared with old ones to see if their audio frequencies match.

Despite questions about when bin Laden's statements were recorded and about the timing of their release, many people think they are genuine.

The Al-Jazeera tapes are central to the debate over whether bin Laden survived the war in Afghanistan.

"My feeling is that he is still alive," Shouly said. "In the last audio statement he was talking about Iraq. We leave it to the viewer to judge." From its headquarters in this affluent Persian Gulf emirate, Al-Jazeera's seven huge satellite dishes beam its signal to 35 million viewers, primarily in the Arabic-speaking world.

Aided by a five-year, $150 million grant from Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, the progressive ruler of Qatar, Al-Jazeera began operations on Nov. 1, 1996. At first, it broadcast six hours a day; today it goes 24/7 and pays for itself with advertising.

With 68 journalists and 450 total employees, it is not large by television standards. But as Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak once remarked, it's a "little matchbox" that can set major blazes.

Incendiary images

Words and images of bin Laden have been incendiary. Two al-Qaida tapes broadcast a month after the attacks juxtaposed scenes of Palestinians resisting Israeli troops, the crumbling World Trade Center towers, farewell messages from Sept. 11 hijackers, and sermons by bin Laden. Other tapes have had messages from his deputies or images from al-Qaida training camps.

As the first network to have a news bureau in Kabul, Al-Jazeera got its first real notice in the West with its coverage of Afghanistan.

"Al-Jazeera cannot be faulted as a mouthpiece for bin Laden any more than CNN could be faulted as a mouthpiece for Saddam Hussein because of its unique, indeed exclusive, television news assets in Baghdad during Desert Storm," Arab media analyst S. Abdallah Schleifer has written.

Shouly, the senior producer, has a ready answer for those who see anti-Israeli or anti-American bias on Al-Jazeera's screens.

"In general, Arab people have no quarrel with America. They admire the American way of life," Shouly said. "But what poisoned the relationship was America's unconditional, blind support for Israel.

"Occupation is the highest form of terrorism. If you want to be courageous, you should say that."

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