MADRID, May 17 (Xinhua) -- Five suspected hackers who were accused of attacking government websites in the United States, Asia and Latin America have been arrested, Spanish police said Saturday.

    They were arrested this week in the Spanish cities of Barcelona, Burgos, Malaga and Valencia.

    Among the arrested are two 16-year-old youths who belong to "one of the most active groups of hackers on the Internet," which have disabled 21,000 web pages in two years, the police said in a statement.

    The members of the group have never met, but they have allegedly organized and coordinated attacks over the Internet, working in particular with hackers in Latin America, according to the police.

    "They would substitute the contents of the web pages attacked with protest messages and included the same anarchist symbols," the statement said.

    The police did not specify which government sites were targeted, but some media reports said the sites of the NASA and the Venezuelan national telephone company were among the targets.

    If convinced, the suspects will face jail terms of one to three years.