From the start until his resignation in July 2013, its editor-in-chief was Abdel Bari Atwan, who was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in the Gaza Strip in 1950.

As indicated by its motto, the paper stresses this distinction by emphasizing its independent ownership and viewpoint relative to the other pan-Arab dailies.

[5] Like Al-Jazeera, contacts with militia groups such as al-Qaeda have consistently stirred attention and controversy in the West toward Atwan and the paper, particularly in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.

"[9] However, Atwan explicitly condemned terrorist attacks on innocent Western civilians, as he wrote in one of his two books, The Secret History of al Qa'ida: "I do not endorse or in any way support al-Qaeda's agenda" and "I utterly condemn the attacks on innocent citizens in the West".

[2] The exact reason for Atwan's sudden departure isn't publicly known, but he stated: "We had on-going and never-ending financial problems whose resolution, ultimately, required political compromises that I was not able to make.

Additionally, Abd al-Bari Atwan wrote a well-known opinion column, featured prominently on the front page until his leave on 10 July 2013.

[4] Former American diplomat and media scholar William Rugh estimated the paper's circulation around 15,000 in 2004 which is also stated by Arab Reform Bulletin.

[12] By point of comparison, rival London-based Arabic press such as Al-Hayat and Asharq Al-Awsat are generally estimated in the 200,000 to 300,000 range.