Al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based Arabiclanguage satellite TV news channel, has appointed a new editor-in-chief.

Ahmed Al Shaikh was a BBC Arabic service journalist before leaving to become part of Al-Jazeera’s founding team in 1996. He replaces Ibrahim Hilal, editor since 2001, who resigned to the join the BBC in January.

In 2000, Al Shaikh was appointed chief editor of the Al-Jazeera website and has also has been managing editor of the English-language website.

He has also produced and presented several programmes on the network and helped launch Al-Jazeera’s Kabul bureau in Afghanistan while still under the Taleban regime.