A top aide to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton yesterday announced that she will separate from her husband after he was caught in another embarrassing sexting incident. 

"After long and painful consideration and work on my marriage, I have made the decision to separate from my husband," Huma Abedin said in a statement. 

Abedin said she and her husband, former congressman Anthony Weiner, "remain devoted to doing what is best for our son" and asked for privacy. 

Donald Trump, Clinton's chief opponent in the Nov 8 US presidential election, said Abedin was making a "wise" decision. 

"I know Anthony Weiner well, and she will be far better off without him," Trump said in a statement. 

The statement went on to criticise Clinton for allowing Weiner close proximity to classified information, suggesting that this had compromised US security. 

"Who knows what he learned and who he told? It's just another example of Hillary Clinton's bad judgment," Trump said. 

Weiner, a former congressman from New York City, has found himself repeatedly in hot water over sexting. In 2011 he mistakenly sent a photo of his crotch, wearing only underpants, to all his Twitter followers, instead of just the young woman with whom he was flirting over the Internet. 

Weiner resigned from Congress after that episode. He tried to restart his political career two years later by entering the race for mayor of New York. But he squandered his bid after revelations that he had continued to sext even after publicly apologising for other illicit transgressions. 

Abedin's announcement follows a report on Weiner's latest sexually explicit messages with another woman, which were published on Sunday by the New York Post.

The Post story said Weiner had sent lewd photos of himself to another woman while his wife was campaigning with Clinton. The newspaper published a photo it said was Weiner lying in bed wearing only underwear with the couple's four-year-old son sleeping in the background.

- dpa