U.S. Democratic rivals Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton are trading barbs over a photo of Obama dressed in traditional local garments during a visit to Kenya in 2006.

The Associated Press photo, which is circulating on the Internet, shows Obama wearing a white turban and a wraparound white robe. The garments were given to him by elders in Wajir, in northeastern Kenya.

Obama, whose late father was Kenyan, visited the country in 2006.

The gossip and news website the Drudge Report posted the photograph Monday, claiming it was being circulated by "Clinton staffers."

Drudge also cited an email from an unidentified campaign aide but did not include evidence of the correspondence.

'Fear-mongering'

Obama, in an interview with WOAI radio in San Antonio, Texas, said voters are "saddened when they see these kind of politics."

"Everybody knows that whether it's me or Senator Clinton or Bill Clinton that when you travel to other countries they ask you to try on traditional garb that you have been given as a gift," he said. "The notion that the Clinton campaign would be trying to circulate this as a negative on the same day that Senator Clinton was giving a speech about how we repair our relationships around the world is sad."

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe accused Clinton's campaign of "the most shameful, offensive fear-mongering we've seen from either party in this election."

Clinton campaign manager Maggie Williams said the Obama campaign's reaction was inflaming passions and distracting voters.

"Enough," Williams said in a statement. "If Barack Obama's campaign wants to suggest that a photo of him wearing traditional Somali clothing is divisive, they should be ashamed. Hillary Clinton has worn the traditional clothing of countries she has visited and had those photos published widely.

"This is nothing more than an obvious and transparent attempt to distract from the serious issues confronting our country today and to attempt to create the very divisions they claim to decry."

However, Williams did not confirm nor deny whether any Clinton staffers had circulated the image.

"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," Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said in a teleconference with reporters. "None of us have seen the email in question. If anybody has independent reporting that they've done on it I would welcome it."

Obama had been in Kenya two years ago to learn how tribes were organizing themselves, said retired Air Force Gen. Scott Gration, who accompanied the Illinois senator on the trip.

"And in the course of this, Senator Obama was given an outfit and as the guest that he was, the great guest, he took this outfit and they encouraged him to try some of it on," Gration told reporters in a teleconference. "It was a thing that we all do."

In December, two Clinton Iowa volunteers resigned after forwarding a hoax email that falsely said Obama is a Muslim possibly intent on destroying the United States.

Obama is a member of the United Church of Christ and says he has never been a Muslim, but false rumours continue to spread online.

Campaign trail

Hoping to derail Obama's campaign before primaries in Texas and Ohio next week, Clinton painted a picture of Obama as inconsistent in foreign policy.

"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 cooperation of our allies in the most sensitive part of the world," Clinton said in a speech at The George Washington University on Monday.

Despite her tactics, the latest poll numbers show Obama has taken a clear lead over Clinton among white men, middle-income earners and liberals.

The Associated Press-Ipsos survey shows Clinton's poll numbers are collapsing since the last survey was taken two weeks ago.

The Illinois senator leads Clinton by 23 percentage points among white men and by 17 points among liberals - groups that were evenly divided between the two in early February.

Obama has a similar advantage among those earning US$50,000 to $100,000 annually -- whom she led earlier by 13 points.

Overall, Obama has 46 per cent to Clinton's 43 per cent, a virtual tie. Clinton had a slight 5 point lead nationally in early February.

The AP-Ipsos poll was conducted from Feb. 22-24 and involved telephone interviews with 1,011 adults nationally. The margin of sampling error was plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

With files from The Associated Press