After taking a one-and-a-half month break from launching distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks against the websites of United States financial institutions, Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters came forward to announce the second phase of Operation Ababil.

“Now, we acclaim that the second phase of the Ababil operation is in ahead and from this week according to the announced plan, will be performed,” the hackers said.

“In new phase, the wideness and the number of attacks will increase explicitly; and offenders and subsequently their governmental supporters will not be able to imagine and forecast the widespread and greatness of these attacks.”

Their mission appears to be the same: to get the controversial “Innocence of Muslims” movie removed from the Internet, and to put an end to the “organized” offensive acts against Islamic holy issues.

“They didn’t pay any attention to the extensive complaints made by Muslims against this offend and also did not take in to account their damaged feelings and behave with them so rudely. We know that they only marked the sensitivity and honor of the Muslims and examine it and now they really observe the consequences of this experiment so strongly,” they said.

The hackers’ targets for this week are US Bancorp, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America (BoA), PNC Financial Services Group and SunTrust.

In an interview we had a few weeks ago with the members of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters, they explained that they were highly confident in their capabilities to take down bank websites.

“The reason why we previously warned the people was for their welfare and to make daily schedule for them possible. Also we did believe in our power and ability and we were sure they will not be able to resist our attacks,” the hackers told Softpedia.