Iraq military denies coup, says page 'hacked'

BAGHDAD, Iraq

Iraq's Joint Operations Command has denied staging a military coup, saying the official page of the Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) was hacked.

On Sunday, the CTS's Facebook and Twitter pages said a coup was underway.

"We would like to state that the CTS's official page was hacked by weak-spirited people," the Command said in a statement on Monday.

"What was published on this page about disobedience was baseless and had no credibility at all," it said.

CTS head Talib Shaghati al-Kanani, for his part, also denied reports about a military coup.

"The CTS has been and will always be a protector of the people, the democratic political system and the Iraqi state and its national institutions," he said in a statement.

Social media pages of the Iraqi government have been hacked several times since last month, when mass protests broke out in several provinces against deep-seated corruption and poor living conditions.

According to the Iraq's High Commission for Human Rights, at least 340 Iraqis have been killed and around 15,000 have been injured since the protests began on Oct. 1.

*Ahmed Asmar contributed to this report from Ankara