A visiting US state department official welcomes Al-Jazeera's plans to open an office in Kuala Lumpur but criticised the Qatar-based satellite television station for its alleged links to deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and the al-Qaeda terrorist group.

In an interview with malaysiakini yesterday, director of the Washington-based Foreign Press Centre Duncan MacInnes said the satellite TV station also come under scrutiny for being an alleged "mouthpiece for al-Qaeda and other radical Islamic factions".

"Nonetheless, it would be very exciting to have an Al-Jazeera office in Kuala Lumpur (due to open later this year) in view of the eight-year-old station's 'ground-breaking work' in the Middle East," said MacInnes, who also heads the centre's Muslim affairs bureau.

He said the US government has questioned Al-Jazeera's reputation in light of reports alleging that a number of its journalists have been under the payroll of Saddam until his downfall in 2003.

"Al-Jazeera is seen by Iraqis as pro-Saddam. It was felt by Iraqis that Al-Jazeera supported Saddam and only reported from Iraq what made Saddam look good.

"Following the fall of Saddam, it turned up that Saddam was paying some of the Al-Jazeera reporters. He paid lots of reporters, it was kind of his thing," he said.

'Acts as al-Qaeda mouthpiece'

Furthermore, MacInnes added, the satellite TV station was also guilty of portraying the US invasion and occupation of Iraq from a singular ideological perspective without soliciting other views.

"They often present the situation from one point of view. They deliberately do not seek out Iraqis (but instead) use other interrogators in their talk-shows. Basically, they bought into portraying the war from their own viewpoint of Pan-Arab nationalism."

MacInnes, who said he is on a 'listening tour' of Malaysia and Indonesia in order to gauge and understand the response of people in this region to US' foreign policies, also claimed that Al-Jazeera had compromised media ethics by pandering to al-Qaeda and other extremist groups.

"They provide a mouthpiece to al-Qaeda and other radical Islamic factions and various terrorist groups."

He gave the example of Al-Jazeera broadcasting the footage of the gristly beheading of an American hostage in Iraq. The TV station should have only reported that it had received such a tape, said MacInnes.

"But running the whole tape is unacceptable because what they're doing is they're helping promote the terrorist agenda. Al-Jazeera is not the mouthpiece for al-Qaeda, yet Al-Jazeera has sometimes acted as one."

'Killings never aired'

When contacted, Al-Jazeera spokesperson Jihad Ballout defended the controversial TV station.

"Al-Jazeera has never aired the image of a beheading, shooting, strangulation, or any form of killing because we view the airing of these as being beyond the call of duty of informing (the public). This has never been done."

Furthermore, Ballout said while the station would not cease to include the views of radical Islamists and other extremists - because they represent "an integral part" of the political landscape - Al-Jazeera invites academics and other experts to provide analysis and context to these factors.

Al-Jazeera also solicits a plurality of views in order to provide a comprehensive and balanced coverage of issues, he added.

On accusations that Saddam had some Al-Jazeera journalists under his payroll, the spokesperson said it is a principle of the station not to reply to allegations of such links on grounds that these claims remain unsubstantiated.

Never proven

"These are unsubstantiated allegations that have never been proven. One of our biggest challenges is to try to protect our independence and editorial integrity and ensure those are not compromised," he said.

"We have over 40 million viewers around the world, and I believe that they would be better judges of the professionalism of Al-Jazeera than bureaucrats of a government that has an agenda of its own," he added.

Although lauded by the New York Times , UK-based Guardian and other publications for "honest and accurate reporting", Al-Jazeera has since its formation in 1996 been in the crosshairs of the US government for allegedly biased and "inflammatory" coverage of the Middle East.

Twenty of Al-Jazeera's journalists have been arrested by US forces in Iraq, while journalist Tariq Ayoub was killed in April 2003 when its office in Baghdad was shelled by a US tank.

Al-Jazeera's office in Baghdad has remained closed since last August under orders from the then Iraqi interim government.

The Arab television network is to base its Asian operations in Kuala Lumpur when it launches an English-language satellite channel later this year. The station wants its English-language satellite channel to rival established 24-hour international news stations such as CNN and the BBC.