WEB designers at the Diocese of Hereford are calling for the Muslim militants who hacked into their site to contact them.

Four video stills, two showing fatally injured children, appeared on the site after the Bishop of Hereford announced his support for the war in Iraq.

Anyone visiting the church website was diverted to the Muslim Allah Akbar page, which means "Allah is the greatest".

"It was very dramatic," said Anni Holden, diocese director of communications and web developer.

"There was a line of text that said something like 'it's a shame that so much greed has led to this happening'. There were four pictures which appeared to have been taken off al-Jazeera TV.

"We would like to enter into a dialogue with these people. It would be more productive to find out why they did it.

"These things happen in war. Let's not belittle it, but I don't think hacking into websites helps.

"This won't stop the bishop having a say and certainly hasn't made him change his mind."

Supported actions

The Bishop of Hereford, the Right Reverend John Oliver, told a diocese synod meeting that he supported the actions in Iraq - views that have gone against the General Synod's stance.

He said he was surprised the website had been changed.

"I understand people feel very strongly about the war," he said. "There's been tremendous opposition to it in the run-up to the decision and people are still very angry. I'm sad about that because personally I feel we really have no alternative."

The Bishop was in London when the website was hacked into and had not seen the images.

Service provider KC3 restored the website within hours of the discovery on Monday, March 24.

It said a number of church websites had been targeted.

KC3 office manager Peter Loughran discovered the intrusion while looking at the company's sites. He found the religious sites had been redirected to the Allah Akbar webpage.

"The page was only available for about two hours and the Hereford Diocese appear to be the only people to have noticed it," he said.