An Internet computer server operated by an Arkansas government agency was transformed last weekend into the online home of dozens of videos featuring Osama bin Laden, Islamic jihadist anthems and terrorist speeches.

State government officials removed the files from a computer operated by the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department shortly after they were discovered, a government spokesman said. The case highlights an increasing trend of hackers hijacking vulnerable Web servers for the purpose of advocating radical political and terrorist ideologies.

Links to the files were posted to a message board of a group called al Ansar. The Web site features photos of bin Laden, leader of the al-Qaida terrorist network, and the 9-11 hijackers, as well as basic facts about the tenets of Islam and links to chat rooms and other Islamic Web sites. The person who posted the links identified himself as “Irhabi 007”– or “Terrorist 007” — said Laura Mansfield, who tracks pro-al-Qaida Web sites for Northeast Intelligence Network, an Erie, Pa.-based private group of analysts that monitors the Internet for terrorist activity.

Arkansas Transportation Department spokesman Randy Ort confirmed that approximately 70 unauthorized files were posted Sunday to a “File Transfer Protocol” (FTP) site that the agency operates for contractors.

Ort would not describe the files, except to say that they were labeled “in a foreign language.” He said the department shut the site down Monday after a CNN reporter called to ask what the materials were doing there.

Ort said that the FBI has confiscated the server.

An FBI spokesman, Joe Parris, confirmed that the agency took the computers, but he would not say whether it was investigating the incident.

Mansfield said hijacking unsecured FTP sites was standard procedure for al-Qaida sympathizers, but it was unusual for them to take over a government site.