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Chatham Town FC website is hacked by extremists referring to the Charlie Hebdo massacre

Chatham Town Football Club's website has apparently been hacked by extremists.

Supporters of Chatham Football Club visiting their team's site today were greeted with the message: Where is the security? and 'I am not Charlie' - a reference to the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris earlier this month.

The message which greeted visitors to the site today
The message which greeted visitors to the site today

The message, purporting to be from Abdellah Elmagrhibi goes onto state that he is not a terrorist and is "proud to be Muslim".

It adds: "A little respect for other religions," and "Allah is One."

The club had to take down its website and posted a tweet apologising for its unavailability ahead of the game at Tilbury in the Ryman League Division 1 today.

Chatham FC's Maidstone Road ground
Chatham FC's Maidstone Road ground

Thousands of French websites were hit by cyber attacks in the wake of the Paris shootings, but hackers have also set their sights on websites in other western countries.

Hacking group Anonymous were the first to call for cyber attacks, declaring war on Islamic terrorists, but their efforts were swiftly followed by pro-muslim hackers.

Just over a week after the Charlie Hebdo massacre, more than 19,000 French websites had been hit, many of which - such as a gardening website - had little connection to the affairs in Paris or western foreign policy.

Likewise, Chatham Town FC's website would appear to have been targeted at random.

"It makes no sense," said Steve Archer, who looks after the website. "We're a part time football club, so I'm pretty sure it's just a random attack - I hope it was.

"Someone told me about 11pm last night. It must have been quite late as I had been working on it that evening.

"I'm just hoping I've not lost too much information," speaking on Saturday morning. "It's taken me two years to put it together, and I've spent a lot of time on the history section. I've got results on there going back to 1990."

Those fears were later allayed, and the website was back up and working by 1pm.

Last year it emerged that a mother from Chatham had joined Islamic State jihadists and was trying to lure young women to Syria, online.

Sally Jones and her 10-year-old son, renamed Hamza, moved to the middle East in 2013.

She now lives in Raqqa, Syria, where public beheadings and crucifixions have been carried out. She had previously called Britain and America “terrorist” nations and said she had become militant in response to the two nations’ killing of Muslims.

Jones is said to have once fronted an all-girl rock band in the 1990s and previously had an interest in black magic and witchcraft.

Former neighbours in Chatham have spoken of her chaotic lifestyle, describing her as a “nightmare” who was always screaming and shouting and had previously believed she was a witch.

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