President Bush faced a furious response from relatives of September 11 victims today after launching re-election campaign advertisements featuring graphic images of the terror attacks.

Senior members of Mr Bush's campaign team were forced to take to the airwaves to defend Mr Bush against accusations that he was exploiting the tragedy of September 11, 2001, when around 3,000 were killed by airline hijackers, to win re-election.

Mr Bush is to make his leadership after the September 11 attacks the central focus of his re-election campaign, but he was given stark warning today that the strategy is high risk.

Beginning what is expected to be the most expensive advertising campaign in presidential history, the Bush campaign aired its first four ads today. Three featured images of the charred shell of the World Trade Centre, and one showed firefighters emerging from the wreckage carrying a victim's flag-draped remains.

The timing of the advertisements, which seek to portray Mr Bush as a steady leader "in times of change," came the day after John Kerry, the Massachusetts senator, effectively won the Democrat presidential nomination.

It signalled Mr Bush's eagerness to move swiftly into full campaign mode after months of criticisms from Democrats.

Instead, Mr Bush ran into accusations that he was exploiting the terror victims for political advantage. The Republican National Convention is also being held in New York, close to Ground Zero, the week before the tragedy's third anniversary, a schedule and location that has evoked similar accusations.

Monica Gabrielle, whose husband died in the Twin Towers, said of the advertising campaign: "It's a slap in the face of the murders of 3,000 people. It is unconscionable." Mrs Gabrielle said that Mr Bush's strategy was compounded by his refusal to publicly testify before a commission investigating the tragedy.

The White House has also been accused by the commission of blocking its progress by being slow to produce Mr Bush's intelligence briefings from before the September 11 attacks.

Tom Roger, whose daughter was a flight attendant on one of the hijacked aircraft that were flown into the Twin Towers, said: "I would be less offended if he showed a picture of himself in front of the Statue of Liberty.

"But to show the horror of the 9/11 background, that's just some advertising agency's attempt to grab you by the throat."

Mindy Kleinberg, another relative, said the image of remains being removed from the rubble was particularly offensive. "How heinous is that? That's somebody's loved one," she said.

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