President Barack Obama has nominated a longtime U.S. diplomat to the Mideast as its next ambassador to Libya, filling the sensitive post that has been vacant since Ambassador Chris Stevens was killed in an attack on an American outpost on Sept. 11.

Deborah K. Jones has served in American embassies in Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, and Syria as a career diplomat. She also worked in U.S. embassies in Turkey and Ethiopia.

She would head the U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya's capital of Tripoli under the specter of increased tensions and tight security there since Stevens' death.

Stevens was killed in a terror attack on the diplomatic mission while visiting Benghazi on the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks against the U.S.