The al-Jazeera Arabic TV channel based in Qatar is known to most Americans only be reputation. Few Americans have access to the station's satellite signal.

But the station is reaching a new audience thanks to a newly launched website. With little promotion, the station's Web site is being swamped with hits.

The english.aljazeera.net site, described as temporary, features coverage of the war in Iraq from a viewpoint distinctly different from that provided by U.S. journalists.

A spokesman for Web measurement firm comScore Media Metrix told internetnews.com that it didn't yet have traffic figures for the site, but an estimated 290,000 U.S. Internet users visited aljazeera.net the site on Sunday, said comScore's Graham Mudd. "This represents an increase of more than 450 percent versus Saturday and an increase of nearly 1,400 percent versus an average of the previous four Sundays."