EXTREMISTS have launched a cyber attack against an online Basingstoke radio station – replacing website pages with terrorist propaganda.

Hampshire Constabulary is investigating the targeting of Radio Basingstoke’s site after web pages were defaced with sinister images and messages by someone claiming to be a “Soldier of Allah” and “M03sl3mH4ck3rs”.

The site was compromised on Monday morning and messages were left claiming to be on behalf of Ahmed Al-Qahtani – suspected to have been involved in the 9/11 hijackings.

They called on God to bless “moujahidines” – Muslim fighters.

The website – which received 140,000 hits last month – had its home page replaced with a picture of a pair of green eyes above a woman on an altar against a black background.

Part of a message in green text read: “Whoever think of insulting Islam or Muslims will suffer the same fate. We are the nightmare of western websites in the cyber war.”

The hackers – who managed to embed a chant on the Basingstoke website and also staged a second attack yesterday – claim they are defending Islam from harassment by America, Israel and Denmark. They appear to have links to Indonesia.

Radio Basingstoke owner Astrid Haigh-Smith discovered the website had been hacked into after a friend called to tell her the web pages had been replaced.

Ms Haigh-Smith, who also DJs, said: “When I realised what had happened, I was quite frightened and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.”

The 53-year-old, who launched the website last year, runs the station from her home in Winchester Road, Basingstoke. It streams music online 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and DJs have occasionally expressed support for British forces.

Computer security magazine SC Magazine has reported that since the recent assault on Gaza by Israeli forces, more than 10,000 websites worldwide have been compromised by radical hackers.

The magazine reported that a hacker, nicknamed “Cold Z3ro”, runs an Arabic language hacking school on the internet and is claiming responsibility for thousands of defacements.

Ms Haigh-Smith said: “I couldn’t understand why we had been targeted. I just thought maybe it was because we had commented that we hoped our troops would be safe over Christmas.

“We’ve also played the Cliff Richard version of Halleujah, but we would never dream of running down any religions.

“I’m not going to change what songs we play. If we start doing things like that then the terrorists will have won.

“Months of hard work went into the site, and some of it we’ll never get back. I think it’s a horrible thing to have done and the purpose is to try and spread fear.”

The defaced pages have now been replaced with temporary backups.

Ms Haigh-Smith said that when she phoned the police, she was told not to touch the website until an officer had made printouts.

She added: “The officer came round on Monday morning but was very tight-lipped. He phoned Special Branch to read them the contents of the messages.

“The only thing they would say was a few websites had been hacked into since the Israel attacks.”

Peter Edney, media and corporate communications officer for the north and east Hampshire operational command unit, said: “Hampshire Constabulary is investigating the matter but have not passed it to another department yet. We cannot comment on what lines of inquiry we are looking into.”