Deborah Jones arrived in Tripoli last week to become Washington's first ambassador to Libya since Christopher Stevens was killed last year in Benghazi.

Jones arrived on 19 June and officially presented her credentials to the General National Congress (GNC) a day later. She will be the first US ambassador to Libya since September, when her predecessor, Christopher Stevens, was killed during an attack on a US embassy building in Benghazi. No-one has yet been charged with the killings.

The US embassy in Tripoli was managed by a Chargé d’Affaires, William Roebuck, in the interim period.

Jones, an Arabic speaker, joined the State Department in 1982 and has held a wide variety of positions around the Arab world, including the post of ambassador to Kuwait between 2008 and 2011.

She is married to the current US ambassador to Pakistan.