Newsweek magazine's Twitter account was the victim of hackers on Tuesday who posted an image of an Islamic militant's kerchief-covered head and the words "Je suis IS," a dual reference to Islamic State and the French magazine Charlie Hebdo.

The account contained a message from the "Cybercaliphate" intended for the United States in retaliation for its actions in the Muslim world.

"While the U.S. and its satellites are killing our brothers in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, we are destroying your national cybersecurity system from inside," it said.

The same group took responsibility for a recent intrusion of the U.S. Central Command Twitter account.

The group began tweeting “leaked documents” from the Pentagon, while promising a “bloody Valentine’s Day.”

The group also threatened the U.S. First Lady.

 

Newsweek, a publication now owned by IBT Media, said the account was taken over for about 14 minutes before Twitter returned control to the news organization.

"We can confirm that Newsweek's Twitter account was hacked this morning, and have since regained control of the account," Newsweek managing editor Kira Bindrim said in a statement.

"We apologize to our readers for anything offensive that might have been sent from our account during that period, and are working to strengthen our newsroom security measures going forward."

Twitter users noticed the anomaly, and saw the account appeared to have been restored a short time later, with an empty "egg" image in place of its customary logo.

In January, the hacked Centcom Twitter feed posted what appeared to be an office phone directory of officers that was slightly out of date.

The unauthorized tweets were removed, but images shown on some media showed they included threats against First Lady Michelle Obama and messages praising "cyber jihad."

Another message said: "While the US and its satellites are killing our brothers in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, we are destroying your national cybersecurity system from inside."

The move came the same day the US administration announced the launch of a new cyber intelligence center which aims to integrate information about threats to critical computer networks.

Other major media organizations have had social media accounts compromised including the BBC, Associated Press and Agence France-Presse.