Before this he was a correspondent for the BBC Pashto Service for about six years. He joined the BBC in 2001, reporting on the U.S. attack on the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in the wake of the September 11 attacks. Before the BBC, he was a print journalist and worked with Pakistan's premier English daily publications, The News and Dawn. Since 9/11, he has reported extensively on the Taliban, militancy in the border regions and Pakistan's military operations against al-Qaeda operatives and their local supporters in the tribal areas of Pakistan. Mr. Ali was a Knight Journalism Fellow at the John S. Knight Fellowships Program at Stanford during 2006-2007.