Al-Jazeera Web Site Knocked Off-Line.

The new English-language Web site of controversial Qatar-based satellite news channel Al-Jazeera was knocked off-line Tuesday by what may have been a denial-of-service attack.

The site was just launched Monday and was put together rather quickly in order to deliver news on the U.S.-led attack on Iraq. However, the site became overloaded very soon after its launch and by Tuesday afternoon, both the English and Arabic sites were completely unavailable.

The channel has come under heavy criticism in recent days from U.S. government and military leaders for showing video of executed American soldiers and prisoners of war. There's no telling whether the attack was linked to the airing of the footage, which was available only on the Arabic site. The English site only had still photos of the soldiers.

U.S. officials have said that the pictures of the dead American soldiers and interviews of the POWs by Iraqi television constitute war crimes.

There could be several possible explanations for the sites' problems, including a ...