Sri Lankan Army site 'assasinated' by rebels

The Sri Lankan army has said its website was hacked by rebels who posted "horrible and gruesome images."

The attack on the www.army.lk site sent army technicians scrambling to remove the content. By Friday afternoon California time, the site appeared to be running normally.

The defense ministry blamed the attack on Tamil rebels known as LTTE, or Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

"Sri Lanka Army’s official news wing, (www.army.lk) has been illegally hacked and technically 'assassinated' by suspected Tiger terrorists or their proxies, during the wee hours on Friday (1st May), inserting some horrible and gruesome images," the Army wrote here. "This new form of information 'terrorism' is a criminal offence that can be subjected to prosecution, according to international legal provisions."

Internet attacks that accompany geopolitical conflicts have been around since at least 2007, when groups believed to be sympathetic to Russia attacked government crippled web traffic in Estonia for two weeks after the government in the latter country removed a bronze statue depicting a World War II Russian soldier from a park in the city of Tallinn.

Cyber warfare over the past decade has become a major preoccupation of militaries everywhere. Earlier this week, a panel of advisors called the US government's policy for waging war online ill-formed. ®