Yemen Conflict Fought On and Offline

The London-based al-Hayat newspaper, which is owned by Khalid Bin Sultan, former Saudi deputy defense minister and Saudi royal family member, was hacked by the group to display slogans and pictures from the Houthi movement and Hezbollah. The hackers also claimed to have leaked the personal information of al-Hayat subscribers in a "warning to all Pro-Saudi or pan-Arabs, accept the Yemen Revolution and join us against your dictators." 

According to reports, the hackers displayed a picture of the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and a slogan used by its supporters, "prepare your bomb shelters," and the caption: "We are oppressed but not weak, we are waiting for you. Come with all your Israeli and US made weapons!"

The site's administration removed the messages and replaced them with the notification, "this site is under maintenance due to hacking atttempts," before bringing the website back online on Tuesday morning.

On Sunday, Iran's Arabic-language state TV network Al-Alam reported its Twitter and Youtube accounts had been hacked, and a false report tweeted that Houthi rebel leader Abdul Malek al-Houthi was dead. On its Youtube channel, the hackers posted a song in praise of Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz, against the background of the Saudi flag.

The above Tweet shows coverage from Al-Alam of the conflict in Yemen, where a Saudi-led Arab coalition has been carrying out airstrikes on Houthi-controlled targets since March 26. 

According to al-Alam, which in November was taken off air by satellite operators based in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the hack is "related to the Saudi Arabian intelligence organization," and is retaliation for "the channel's truthful coverage of the bombing campaign in Yemen." The channel also said the hackers had posted several Tweets containing what they claimed to be the names and contact details of Al-Alam correspondents around the Middle East, in what they said was an attack in "the field of psychological war."