Bashar al-Assad

Labour councillor Ben Hart’s site attacked after he Tweeted about Middle East conflict

A town councillor who Tweeted messages calling for the conflict in Syria to end has been left stunned after his personal website was hacked, apparently by sympathisers of the Middle East regime.

A group calling itself Syria Storm took over the site which detailed Cllr Ben Hart’s work for Lydd Town Council.

He was amazed someone thought his views were important enough to deserve a personal attack.

Cllr Hart, from Lydd, said: “I just don’t understand it. I have spoken about Syria on Twitter, but mentioned nothing on my own website.

“I am not intimidated by the attack, and it has given me the chance to go back and redesign it as I was intending to do anyway.”

The homepage was left with a black background, a picture of Syrian dictator President Bashar al-Assad, and the message that it had been “HaCk3d By Syrian Storm”.

The webpage has since been removed with a message that it is down for maintenance.

The 23-year-old Labour councillor said: “I know I am not a threat to this regime so I wonder why I have been chosen for this attack.

“The Twitter comments I have made were simply to raise awareness of what is happening in Syria. I think I will still carry on making my views known.

“It is only what I said on Twitter that they took offence at. The attack just came out of the blue.

“I get why they did it, but I am not going to be fazed. I don’t have a big enough following on Twitter that warrants attacking. That is why I was shocked.”

Foreign secretary William Hague has told Parliament Syria is heading for civil war with credible reports of al-Qaida involvement.

He also revealed that Britain has sent human rights observers to neighbouring countries to help document the “grotesque crimes” of the Assad regime which are said to have included recent massacres of children.

Towns are coming under increasing shelling, and Mr Hague said during a visit to Pakistan that Britain was not looking at a military intervention even if peace plans drawn up by UK envoy Kofi Anan are not heeded.

Mr Hague said: “All our efforts are going into supporting a peaceful transition in Syria and a peaceful solution, because any violent solution would clearly involve many more deaths and a great deal more hardship for the Syrian people.”