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The Obama administration is engulfed in a full-blown foreign policy crisis just two months before the presidential election after the murder of the US ambassador to Libya and three other officials and amid fierce criticism from his opponent Mitt Romney.

Footage of the body of Christopher Stevens, United States ambassador to Libya, slung over the back of a protester, was reminiscent of the 1993 ‘Black Hawk Down’ incident in Somalia in 1993 when militia fighters lynched American aircrew in the streets of Mogadishu.

President Barack Obama’s staff will also be mindful that a shadow was cast over Jimmy Carter’s presidency by the Iranian hostage crisis after the US embassy in Tehran was stormed by Islamist extremists following the Iranian revolution.

The Obama administration is engulfed in a full-blown foreign policy crisis just two months before the presidential election with the two campaigns trading angry accusations over events in Libya, Egypt and Israel

U.S. ambassador to Libya: John Christopher Stevens was killed during violent protests in the Middle East over an amateur film thought to insult Mohammed

War: The U.S. Consulate in Benghazi is seen in flames during a protest by an armed group said to have been protesting a film being produced in the United States on September 11, 2012

A year after the 52 Americans were taken hostage, Carter lost the 1980 election. The hostages were released just as President Ronald Reagan, who defeated Carter, was sworn in.

The attacks in Cairo and Benghazi were ostensibly triggered by the release of a low-budget film ridiculing the Prophet Mohammed. Excerpts of the film, dubbed in Arabic, had been posted on YouTube.

As the situation in Benghazi, where Stevens and three other US officials workers were reportedly killed in a rocket attack at the American consulate, began to spiral out of control the Romney campaign issued a statement.

‘I’m outraged by the attacks on American diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt and by the death of an American consulate worker in Benghazi,’ Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee, stated, when it was known that one person had been killed.

‘It’s disgraceful that the Obama Administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathise with those who waged the attacks.’

The statement, issued at 10.15pm east coast time, was embargoed until midnight – the end of the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, during which a campaign pause had been observed. But 15 minutes later the campaign said that the statement could be released immediately.

Violent protest: An armed man waves his rifle as buildings and cars are engulfed in flames after being set on fire inside the US consulate compound in Benghazi

Unrest: Three American staff members of the U.S. consulate in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi have died following fierce clashes at the compound

History repeating: Footage of the body of Christopher Stevens, U.S. ambassador to Libya, slung over the back of a protester, was reminiscent of the 1993 ‘Black Hawk Down’ incident in Somalia in 1993

Ten minutes after midnight passed, the Obama campaign responded: ‘We are shocked that, at a time when the United States of America is confronting the tragic death of one of our diplomatic officers in Libya, Governor Romney would choose to launch a political attack.’

Republicans had earlier been very critical of a statement from the US Embassy in Cairo, where protester breached the walls to tear down an American flag, rip it into pieces and replace it with a black Islamic flag.

The statement said that the embassy ‘condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims’. Shortly before midnight in Washington, the State Department issued a terse statement saying that the embassy had not cleared the message, which had been issued before the violence.

In a twitter message sent out after midnight, Reince Priebus, chair of the Republican National Committee, said: ‘Obama sympathizes with attackers in Egypt. Sad and pathetic.’

As the Cairo and Benghazi diplomatic missions were being attacked, the Obama administration was embroiled in a diplomatic row with Israel after Israeli officials said that President Barack Obama had snubbed their prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu by declining to meet him when he visits the US this month.

The Romney campaign has been fiercely critical of what it argues is a deliberate distancing of America’s principal ally Israel over negotiations with Palestinians and standing up to the threat of an Iranian nuclear weapon.