A group calling themselves the Syrian Electronic Army today took control of three BBC Twitter accounts.
Accounts @BBCWeather, @BBCArabicOnline and @BBCRadioUlster today posted tweets saying: Syrian Electronic Army Was Here via @Official_SEA #SEA #Syria.
More than three hours after the first tweets, a BBC spokesperson said: “The BBC twitter accounts which were hacked earlier today are now back under our control and all inappropriate tweets have been deleted.
"We apologise to our audiences that this unacceptable material appeared under the BBC’s name.”
In addition to the generic message posted on each of the sites, further messages were posted on the BBC Weather account, including on saying: “Long Live #Syria Al Assad #SEA.
Tweets, which were deleted after more than an hour online, also warned of a tsunami alert in Haifa, "chaotic weather" in Lebanon and an earthquake in Qatar.
Here is the tweet stream before it was deleted:
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