KUWAIT: A Kuwaiti computer hacker was being hailed yesterday as a hero for causing the collapse of the Iraqi information ministry website after loading it with viruses.
The 19-year-old, known by his call-name of Koko, launched his cyberattack after becoming incensed by a speech by Saddam Hussein last weekend in which the Iraqi leader offered an "apology" for the 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
Speaking to al-Anbah, a local Kuwaiti newspaper, Koko said: "I did it because what Saddam said was lies and someone had to show that Kuwait was not going to put up with his threats any more. I'm not a hero, I just wanted to defend my country," he added.
Saddam's speech in which he said both Iraq and Kuwait had been victims of the 1991 Gulf War and urged the Kuwaitis to rise up against the "infidel forces" now occupying their country has been roundly condemned across Kuwaiti society.
The Kuwaiti Information Minister, Sheikh Ahmad al-Fahd al-Sabah, said last Sunday that the speech was an "incitement and encouragement" to terrorists acts which would be rejected by the Kuwaiti people.
Koko's conversion to the defence of his country also represents something of a public relations coup in the battle against cyberterrorism.
He had previously been part of a disparate gang of computer hackers involved in acts of sabotage against the Israeli government websites and various American and British business interests.
According to one member of Koko's gang an "electronic jihad" declared by al-Qaeda in 2000 had been enthusiastically taken up by disaffected and computer-literate youth in the Middle East.
The hacker said: "I spent six months on the internet working for al-Qaeda until September 11th happened and then I realised that what I was doing was wrong."