A hacker group that calls itself Anonymous Africa has gone on a cyber attack spree this week, targeting Zimbabwean and South African websites of political and media organisations.

The group has targeted the Zimbabwe’s ruling party, Zanu-PF, with cyber attacks that briefly took down the party’s website.

Today, Anonymous Africa claimed to have hit the African National Congress (ANC) with a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, in which a multitude of compromised systems attack a single target, causing denial of service for users of the targeted system.

The ANC, in turn, has told ITWeb Africa that its servers have been ‘flooded’ by requests and that the party subsequently took its website down in a bid to solve the problem.

Media organisations such as South African news portal IOL and Zimbabwean newspaper The Herald have also this week had their websites targeted by Anonymous Africa, which accuses these media outlets of supporting President Robert Mugabe’s rule in Zimbabwe’s.

The attack on the IOL website followed an opinion piece that was published by The Sunday Independent, in which the author came out in support of Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe. But IOL, in turn, said that it has a right in South Africa to publish a plurality of views.

All of these attacks have come as Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has announced that elections are to take place in that country on July 31 this year - an announcement that has been rejected by opposition party the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

But who is Anonymous Africa?

ITWeb Africa correspondent Tefo Mohapi has interviewed the group behind this week’s cyber attacks on the continent to find out more.

Tefo Mohapi: Are you linked to the rest of the Anonymous movement?

Anonymous Africa: In ways we are, in others we are not. Each anonymous group has its own cause. sometimes our causes come together

Tefo Mohapi: What is the composition (membership) of the Anonymous Africa movement (i.e. demographic, skills, geography)?

Anonymous Africa: We can not say.

Tefo Mohapi: The main motivation, why?

Anonymous Africa: To get people talking about African corruption and the slaughter of 20 000 Ndebele at the hands of Mugabe.

Tefo Mohapi: Timing of attacks, why now?

Anonymous Africa: We saw that piece on IOL glorifying mugabe, after he has gutted Zimbabwe it set a group of us off, we had to let people know the real Mugabe and to not let him rewrite history.

Tefo Mohapi: Also, it is interesting to note the Zimbabwe attacks given upcoming elections, any links to elections?

Anonymous Africa: None at all, terrible choices in those elections.

Tefo Mohapi: Any political links / motivations?

Anonymous Africa: We are pro democracy, anti corruption.

Tefo Mohapi: Will your attacks stop at "protest" type attacks e.g. limited period DDoS attacks or will they extend to something like information leaks?

Anonymous Africa: We can not discuss future ops, but right now they are protests, we do not want to do permanent damage, just get our voices heard

Tefo Mohapi: Any planned future attacks?

Anonymous Africa: Yes, Swaziland is next.

Tefo Mohapi: Would you attack other political parties e.g. Democratic Alliance in SA and MDC in Zimbabwe should their corrupt activities be made known?

Anonymous Africa: If the DA are involved with corruption and supporting mugabe we would target them in an instant, there is no indication of that.