Syrian hackers angry because Belgium had participated in an air strike on a small village that killed 6 people

Oct 25, 2016 13:50 GMT  ·  By

The Syrian Cyber Army (SCA), not to be confused with the Syrian Electronic Army, claimed responsibility for DDoS attacks against several Belgian media news outlets that took place yesterday, on October 24.

Targets included the websites of De Standaard, Het Nieuwsblad, Gazet van Antwerpen, Het Belang van Limburg, and RTFB.

De Standaard and Het Nieuwsblad admitted to the attacks on their websites. The attackers claimed responsibility via a message on the group's homepage.

The attacks resulted in downtime for most of the targets, while other sites were extremely slow to load.

In the statement on its website, SCA said it attacked Belgian media because they failed to report that two Belgian military jets had participated in recent air strikes against the small town of Hassadjek, near the city of Aleppo on October 18.

According to a report from Russia's military, the air strike took place around 03:00 AM and had destroyed two houses, killed six and wounded four. The same report says that two F-16 Belgian Air Force jets were involved in the attacks.

Het Nieuwsblad accused Russia of financing the SCA group and says the attackers used servers located in Turkey to carry out the attacks.

Belgian authorities have started an investigation and said they believe SCA members to have close ties with their more infamous counterparts, the Syrian Electronic Army group.