The website of the Uznews.net independent news service has come under a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack which has rendered the site temporarily inaccessible.

The attack has been launched from somewhere in Asia, the Uznews.net host provider in Germany says.

According to information from the service provider, the DDoS attack began on 29th February and has continued today (1st March). The site has had to be taken down to avoid the server collapsing altogether.

Uznews.net’s editor in chief Galima Bukharbaeva says that this is the first organized attack on the site’s service since it was set up in 2005.

“We do not know what has provoked this DDoS attack, but would guess that one reason is the series of articles we published about the assassination attempt on the Uzbek imam Obid-kori Nazarov in Sweden,” Bukharbaeva said.

The attempt to kill the prominent Uzbek cleric happened in the town of Strömsund on 22nd February. Nazarov is in a critical condition in the University hospital in Umeå in northern Sweden after being shot several times, once in the head.

The Uznews.net host provider is doing everything possible to minimize the effects of the attack and to resume normal service.

Uznews.net