"beset" is a correct and usable word in written English.
It can be used to mean to assail, harass, or surround with difficulties. For example, "The small village was beset by bandits who sought to steal their food."
Writing days before Abdullah's death, the American author Stephen Kinzer warned that the basis of the west's relationship with the Saudi regime was shifting in fundamental ways, while Saudi Arabia's position in a region beset by insurrection and civil war was ever less secure.
Alongside his personal troubles, Robinson's tenure has been beset with political crises and the power-sharing executive being brought close to collapse several times.
The unions were distracted, beset by their own problems of a declining membership and increasing unemployment.
Talks aimed at unlocking desperately needed rescue funds – €7.2bn (£5.3bn) from the last bailout has been held up as both sides haggle over reforms – have been beset by problems since the far-left Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras assumed power in January.
And though he had gained considerable experience as acting monarch after his brother King Fahd's stroke, he was beset by numerous difficulties – dynastic, democratic, religious, ideological, regional and global – and, with only rising oil revenues in his favour, found himself unable to address them to any significant extent.
Claude Le Roy, the manager of Congo, has claimed that he and his squad, as well as his backroom staff, have found it difficult to secure a room and even when they do, they have been beset with problems, such as a lack of running water or exposed cables.
Georgia has had a turbulent post-Soviet experience, to put it mildly, beset by separatist conflicts in two territories, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and riven by a civil war that left the centre of the capital, Tbilisi, in ruins.
One industry insider told the Observer First Utility is beset by complaints and that "customer service is terrible".
Over the last year, however, the fledgling leadership in Kiev has been beset by separatists in the eastern provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk, and has seen the Crimea region vote to secede.
For a nation that styles itself as beset by sexual secrecy, mired in taboos that preclude public discussions about intimate physical acts, these explicit descriptions and images were surprising, but only fleetingly.
Clancy, who was brought out of retirement to fix an agency beset by public scandals and a private leadership crisis, admitted the incident was a symptom of a larger problem.
