The agency began as an answer to a gap. In 2005 the secretary general of the Ahl al-Bayt World Assembly concluded that Shia communities worldwide had no dedicated outlet keeping them informed about each other, and a site called Shianews launched on 15 March that year. It changed its name and domain to AhlulBayt News Agency and abna24.com in August 2007, moving off the .ir domain to reach readers in Arab and Western countries facing restrictions, and was inaugurated in that new form by the Iranian president. It received formal licensing from Iran's Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance on 17 September 2012. The agency is owned by the Ahl al-Bayt World Assembly, an Iranian body established to promote Shia doctrine internationally, and is headquartered in Qom with Sayyid Ali Reza Husseini as managing director. It now publishes in 28 languages. Today, ABNA English is mainly focused on news concerning Shia communities across Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas, Iranian political and military affairs, Palestine and Gaza, religious observances and shrine events, and Islamic cultural coverage, from their base in Qom, Iran. One interesting fact: It publishes in 28 languages, adding Korean in August 2024, and covers everything from Kurmanji and Sorani Kurdish to Hausa, Burmese and Bosnian. It also runs standing "Green Pages" devoted to religious and cultural material separate from the newscast.