Clinton takes responsibility for handling of Libya attack

LIMA: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Monday she takes the blame for any shortcomings in the handling of an attack last month on the US mission in the Libyan city of Benghazi.

"I take responsibility," she said, according to the news networks CNN and Fox, which interviewed her during a visit to the Peruvian capital Lima.

"I'm in charge of the State Department -- 60,000 plus people all over the world, 275 posts," she said, in a brief excerpt of the CNN interview, in which she absolved President Barack Obama from blame. "The president and the vice president certainly wouldn't be knowledgeable about specific decisions that are made by security professionals," she said.

Obama has come under fire from his critics over the attack, which left four Americans dead, and Clinton's move will be seen as an attempt to take the heat off him three weeks before he bids for re-election in the November 6 polls.

On September 11, heavily-armed militants stormed the US consulate compound in Benghazi and fired on a nearby annex, killing the four Americans, including the US ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens.

In the immediate aftermath, Obama administration officials said they appeared to be linked to protests in the Muslim world against a film shot by US-based activists and deemed insulting to the Islamic faith. But it has since emerged that the prime suspects in the attack, now seen as a deliberate assault, are religious militants with links to Al-Qaeda.