Guardian's Twitter accounts hacked by pro-Syria government supporters

The Guardian's Twitter accounts have been taken over by pro-Syrian government hackers, the newspaper says.

A group calling itself the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) claimed responsibility for the attack, the paper added.

The @GuardianBooks, @GuardianTravel and @guardianfilm accounts were among those affected.

Several official BBC Twitter accounts were hacked by the same group last month.

Emails were sent to the newspaper's staff over the weekend asking them to click on web links that could provide access to social media accounts.

A Guardian News and Media spokesman said: "We are aware that a number of Guardian Twitter accounts have been compromised and we are working actively to resolve this."

The SEA are supporters of President Bashar Assad's regime, which has been fighting rebels in Syria since in March 2011. More than 70,000 people are thought to have been killed in the fighting so far.

Several BBC Twitter accounts, including its weather, Arabic and Radio Ulster feeds, were hijacked in March.

Earlier this month, the Twitter accounts for two CBS news programmes in the US were suspended after being hacked by the SEA.

Fake messages appearing on the @60Minutes account criticised US support for "terrorist" rebels in Syria and others accused Barack Obama of trying to "take away your guns". The @CBSDenver account was also taken over.

And in September, the mobile service of Qatar-based news network al-Jazeera Arabic was hacked by the SEA.