Islamic “hackers” (who are really just script kiddies, using commonly available hacking tools developed by smarter people) are escalating their stupid war of cyber-vandalism (Michelle Malkin apparently got hit today): Muslim hackers hit 3,000 Danish Web sites. (Hat tip: Zonie.)

WASHINGTON, Feb. 22 (UPI) — Muslim hackers angered by the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed have defaced nearly 3,000 Danish Web sites over the past month in the biggest politically motivated cyber attack long-time observers have ever seen.

Experts say that the world-wide protests over a Danish newspaper’s decision to publish the caricatures, an act offensive to Muslims who regard any depiction of the Prophet Mohammed as blasphemous, may prove to be something of a coming-of-age moment for the emerging movement of Internet mujahideen — Islamic extremists committed to waging a cyber Jihad on the Web.

“They see this as a huge opportunity,” Stephen Ulph told United Press International.

Ulph, a terrorism analyst with the Jamestown Foundation who monitors web forums and chat rooms used by Islamic hackers, said, “You can feel the excitement (among their users)… There’s a sense that they can make a real difference (on this issue).”

Roberto Preatoni, founder and administrator of Zone-H.org, which tracks Web graffiti artists, says his site has monitored 2,817 defacements of sites in the .dk domain since Jan. 21, when the cartoon controversy first boiled over into world-wide street demonstrations and riots.

“That is at least 10 times, maybe more like 20 times, the number of attacks (in that domain) we would expect in such a time frame,” he told UPI, adding that thousands of other Web sites in Europe and Israel had also been defaced.

Several technology journals reported that the target sites were mostly owned by small organizations without advanced security.

“This is the biggest, most intense assault” he had ever seen, Preatoni said, eclipsing the hacker attacks that accompanied the row over a U.S. spy plane forced down in China in 2001 and the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

He said the phenomenon represented “the emergence of the digital Ummah,” — the Islamic theological term for the worldwide community of Muslim believers.

UPDATE at 2/23/06 5:43:27 pm:

Here’s a related story from Las Vegas: Turkish hackers taking over Valley web sites.