Top Democrats accused Republican White House hopeful Mitt Romney on Sunday of "cravenly" politicizing the deadly attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi to further his presidential ambitions.

The fallout from the attack has developed into a toxic political issue as Romney and Democratic President Barack Obama wage an all-out battle in a tight race 23 days out from the November 6 election.

Top Democrats accused Republican White House hopeful Mitt Romney on Sunday of "cravenly" politicizing the deadly attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi to further his presidential ambitions.

The fallout from the attack has developed into a toxic political issue as Romney and Democratic President Barack Obama wage an all-out battle in a tight race 23 days out from the November 6 election.

Libya's General National Congress elected Ali Zeidan, a long-time opponent of deposed dictator Moammer Gadhafi, as prime minister on Sunday, the assembly's chief said.

"Ali Zeidan is elected prime minister and is asked to propose a cabinet within two weeks," Mohammed Megaryef, president of the national assembly, said in remarks broadcast on television.

Bombers targeted the car of a senior Libyan police officer in the country's second city Benghazi on Saturday, without causing casualties, a security official in the eastern city told Agence France Presse.

"The car of Colonel Mohammed bin Halim, chief of police operations in Benghazi, exploded outside his home. No one was hurt," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Fighters in Bani Walid say they are ready to lay down their lives to defend the besieged town of jagged hilltops which gave shelter last year to loyalists of slain Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.

"They'll have to march over our dead bodies to reach Bani Walid," said commander Salem Waer who is leading military operations in the oasis town circled by armed groups operating under orders of Libya's new authorities.

The U.S. consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi was a sitting target with weak security as requests for extra staffing were denied despite a rising Al-Qaida threat, U.S. lawmakers were told Wednesday.

In a testy and heated hearing, Republican lawmakers grilled three top State Department officials and the former leader of a security team into what went wrong in a September 11 attack on the mission, in which four Americans died.

A lawyer for the man behind the "Innocence of Muslims" video denied Wednesday his client was to blame for a wave of violence across the Middle East, as he appeared in court for a second time.

Attorney Steven Seiden said U.S. congressional hearings in Washington would shed more light on the cause of the unrest that killed a number of people, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya.

A Syrian passenger plane was forced to land in Ankara on Wednesday evening on suspicions that it was carrying weapons, Anatolia news agency reported citing officials.

"We received information that the plane's cargo did not comply with rules of civil aviation," Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was quoted as saying by the agency.

Moammar Gadhafi's son Seif al-Islam without a doubt would get a death sentence if tried in Libya, his lawyer told International Criminal Court in the Hague on Wednesday.

"Although the Libyan government has danced around the issue, let's be very clear: if convicted (in Libya) Mr. Gadhafi will be hanged," Melinda Taylor, a court-appointed lawyer, told judges amid a dispute between the ICC and Tripoli on where Seif should face justice.

The chief of U.S. intelligence has rejected criticism over how spy agencies responded to a deadly attack on diplomats in Libya and said there was no clear warning before the onslaught.

Pushing back against allegations from Republican lawmakers, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper suggested Tuesday it was naive to believe the government could have quickly arrived at a definitive explanation of last month's attack on the U.S. consulate in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi.