Hackers affiliated with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad swiftly claimed responsibility for knocking the U.S. Army's website offline Monday afternoon.

The Syrian Electronic Army took credit for the hack of Army.mil on Twitter, posting a screenshot of an image of the site with the pop-up message reading: "Your commanders admit they are training the people they have sent you to die fighting."

In a statement, the Pentagon acknowledged an intrusion had occured, though it did not confirm the source.

"Today an element of the Army.mil service provider's content was compromised," Army Brig. Gen. Malcolm Frost said. "After this came to our attention, the Army took appropriate preventive measures to ensure there was no breach of Army data by taking down the website temporarily."