Barack Obama's campaign yesterday accused Hillary Clinton’s aides of engaging in “shameful, offensive fear-mongering” by distributing a photograph of him in a turban and tribal costume.

The Clinton camp responded swiftly, saying it was unaware of any such picture and that it was Mr Obama’s team that “should be ashamed”. They accused her rival of making a “transparent attempt to distract from the serious issues confronting our country”.

The row was sparked by a photograph appearing at the top of the Drudge Report — a political gossip website which is no friend of the Clintons — showing Mr Obama dressed as a Somali elder during a visit to Kenya in 2006. The accompanying report claimed the picture was being circulated in e-mails by “stressed Clinton staffers”.

Mrs Clinton’s aides were furious at the prospect of her foreign policy speech in Washington being overshadowed by a row which, they suspect, had been deliberately concocted. Some even expressed doubts that the e-mail referred to by Drudge existed.

But David Plouffe, Mr Obama's campaign manager, was already firing off press statements about it at a time when most voters were still digesting breakfast.

“On the very day that Senator Clinton is giving a speech about restoring respect for America in the world, her campaign has engaged in the most shameful, offensive fear-mongering we’ve seen from either party in this election. This is part of a disturbing pattern,” said Mr Plouffe, alluding to a previous controversy in which one of Mrs Clinton's volunteers had been dismissed for forwarding an e-mail falsely stating that Mr Obama is a Muslim.

His counterpart in the Clinton campaign, Maggie Williams, said: “Enough. If Barack Obama’s campaign wants to suggest that a photo of him wearing traditional Somali clothing is divisive, they should be ashamed . . . We will not be distracted.”

Mrs Clinton’s spokesman, Howard Wolfson, later added: “I just want to make it very clear that we were not aware of it, the campaign didn’t sanction it and don’t know anything about it. None of us have seen the e-mail in question.”

Mrs Clinton later delivered a foreign policy speech at Georgetown University in Washington where she sought to underscore her credentials as a prospective commander-in-chief of the US military by appearing alongside some of the 27 former generals and admirals who have endorsed her.

“We’ve seen the tragic results of having a President who didn’t have either the experience nor the wisdom to manage our foreign policy and safeguard our national security,” she said, comparing Mr Obama to the Bush Administration. “We can’t let that happen again. America has already taken that chance one time too many.”

She highlighted Mr Obama's willingness to invade Pakistan if there were “actionable intelligence” that the country was harbouring terrorists, as well as his repeated pledge to meet the leaders of rogue nations such as Cuba and Iran.

“He wavers from seeming to believe that mediation and meetings without preconditions can solve some of the world's most intractable problems to advocating rash, unilateral military action without the co-operation of our allies in the most sensitive part of the world,” said Mrs Clinton.

But the speech was notably not covered live by any of the cable TV news networks and her campaign has expressed growing anger at what it regards as the fawning attitude of the US media towards Mr Obama.

Although a new poll yesterday showed her with a double-digit lead in Ohio — one of two key states along with Texas that she needs to win on March 4 to halt Mr Obama's surge — Mrs Clinton herself appears frustrated at her opponent's gathering momentum which has now included 11 straight victories.

On Sunday, she resorted to sarcasm, saying: “I can stand up here and say: Let’s just get everybody together, let’s get unified, the sky will open, the light will come down, celestial choirs will be singing, and everyone will know we should do the right thing, and the world will be perfect.”

Mr Obama's chief foreign policy advisers yesterday conducted a “pre-butall" briefing on Mrs Clinton's speech and criticised her judgment on issues such as voting to authorise the Iraq war.

One adviser, Air Force General Scott Gration, added that he had accompanied Mr Obama on his trip to Kenya two years ago. The Senator had demonstrated he was a “great guest”, he said, and by trying on the tribal outfit, he “did what any leader should do”.

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