Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton has been challenged over claims that she came under sniper fire during a trip she made to Bosnia in the 1990s.


Video shown on US TV network CBS shows the then First Lady walking calmly from her plane. Her campaign has said she "misspoke" about landing under fire.

Aides to Barack Obama, her rival to be the party's presidential nominee, argue she overstates her foreign experience.

Rivalry between the pair has increased ahead of 22 April's Pennsylvania vote.

Meanwhile, presumptive Republican nominee John McCain addressed the nation's economic concerns at a campaign event in California on Tuesday.

The Arizona senator is keen to counter arguments that he lacks experience in that field, as the US economic downturn continues.

'Heads down'

The row over Mrs Clinton's 1996 Bosnia visit follow a speech she made on Iraq last week, in which she described herself and her daughter Chelsea being at some risk as they arrived.

She said: "I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base."

The video clip played by CBS on Monday shows Mrs Clinton and Chelsea walking across the tarmac smiling and waving before stopping to shake hands with Bosnia's acting president and meet an eight-year-old girl.

The Obama campaign issued a statement which carried links to the clip on the YouTube video networking site.

Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor said in a statement that the story "joins a growing list of instances in which Senator Clinton has exaggerated her role in foreign and domestic policy-making".

Clinton campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson said Mrs Clinton "misspoke" on one occasion about the incident.

In her book, she described how the airstrip greeting had been cut short because of sniper fire on a nearby hillside - and that was the account she had given many times, he said.

Options open

Mrs Clinton is continuing to campaign in Pennsylvania this week, while Mr Obama has taken a brief holiday from the campaign trail.

He is to embark on a six-day bus tour across the state on Friday, his aides said.

Mr Obama is ahead of Mrs Clinton in terms of the number of delegates won in primary elections so far.

The delegates will choose in August which candidate is to be the party's nominee in November's presidential election, standing against Mr McCain.

Mr McCain, speaking in Orange County in southern California on Tuesday, said he would leave all options open for dealing with current US economic troubles and would "not allow dogma to override common sense".

"I will not play election-year politics with the housing crisis," he said.

"I will evaluate everything in terms of whether it might be harmful or helpful to our effort to deal with the crisis we face now."
BBC News