8000 e-mails stolen from Syrian dictator since 2011
Revolutionaries have obtained what they claim to be personal e-mails of embattled Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and his wife. The Guardian was given access to about 3000 of these documents that activists have stolen since June 2011.
A mole with alleged links to the inner circle of the Syrian government, provided the group with the usernames and passwords for the accounts sam@alshahba.com and ak@alshahba.com - e-mail accounts apparently belonging to the leader and his wife. Activists claim that they used the information obtained to stay a step ahead of regime moves in Damascus.
In January, the hacker group Anonymous also broke into the Syrian government servers and gained access to the very same e-mail accounts above. On February 7th, the Syrian leader apparently received a threatening message from an unknown sender and both e-mail accounts were subsequently shut down. The Guardian claims it has verified the e-mails as best it can, including cross-checking events and attempting to follow up with correspondents listed in many of the leaked documents.
