U.S. Admits Hacking Yemeni Al-Qaeda Websites

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was speaking at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing in Washington on May 23.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said U.S. cyberexperts based at the Pentagon hacked into Al-Qaeda websites in Yemen and changed messages.

Clinton said the experts found websites where Al-Qaeda boasted of killing Americans and replaced the material with information showing "the toll Al-Qaeda attacks have taken on the Yemeni people."

Clinton said that "extremists are publicly venting their frustration and asking supporters not to believe everything they read on the Internet."

Clinton said the Pentagon's cyberteam is "part of a multipronged attack on terrorism that goes beyond raids like the one that killed Osama bin Laden."

Based on reporting by AP, Interfax, and BBC