President Donald Trump has picked career diplomat Justin H. Siberell to be the next US Ambassador to Bahrain.
Siberell is the current acting coordinator for counter-terrorism at the Bureau of Counter-terrorism at the State Department.
If confirmed, Siberell will take over the diplomatic post from William Roebuck who was nominated ambassador in June 2014 and arrived in Bahrain on January 8, 2015.
Siberell entered the Foreign Service in March 1993, and joined the Counter-terrorism (CT) Bureau in July 2012. He is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service and was confirmed by the Senate to the rank of Minister-Counselor.
Before joining the CT Bureau, Siberell, according to his biography, was Principal Officer in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Other overseas assignments include service at US embassies and consulates in Baghdad, Iraq; Amman, Jordan; Alexandria, Egypt; and Panama City, Panama.
In Washington, he completed tours in the State Department Operations Centre and Executive Secretariat; as Desk Officer for Iran in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs and as Executive Assistant to the National Security Advisor at the White House.
Siberell was raised in California, and attended the University of California at Berkeley where he received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in History.
He is a 2002 graduate of the State Department’s Arabic Language Field School in Tunis, Tunisia and speaks Arabic and Spanish.
In September 2016, Siberell was officially nominated to be to be Coordinator for Counterterrorism, with the rank and status of Ambassador at Large.
The US has had diplomats to Bahrain since 1971, the year the island country gained its independence. The diplomatic mission was established on September 21, five weeks after the independence.
John N. Gatch, Jr, was named as Chargé d’Affaires ad interim in 1971 and served for one year. He was followed by William A. Stoltzfus, Jr. who was Ambassador to Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and United Arab Emirates, working out of Kuwait.
In 1974, the US named Joseph W. Twinam as its first ambassador in residence in Manama.
However, the US has never appointed a woman to head its diplomatic mission in Bahrain, although the US has had women deputy ambassadors.
Stephanie Williams whose overseas assignments included Pakistan, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates and who joined the US embassy in Manama in May 2010 was Chargée d’Affaires for six months after Ambassador Adam Ereli left in January 2011.
Bahrain appointed a woman ambassador to the US, Houda Nonoo, who was the first Jewish ambassador to the US from an Arab country. She took the post in 2008 and left in 2013.
In June 2001, Turkey was the first country to send a woman ambassador to Bahrain. Hilal Başkal made history also by being the first Turkish woman appointed as a diplomatic representative to an Arab country. She left the island kingdom in December 2005. Hatun Demirer was the second woman from Turkey to be appointed ambassador to Bahrain. She took up her post in 2013.
Anita Limido was the first Western woman ambassador in the kingdom when she was appointed to head France’s diplomatic mission in July 2001. She was succeeded as French ambassador three years later by another woman, Malika Berak.
In 2009, Corazon Yap-Bahjin, the first Muslim Filipina to be appointed ambassador, became her country’s head of diplomatic mission in Bahrain.
List of US ambassadors to Bahrain:
- John N. Gatch, Jr. (1971-1972) – Chargé d’Affaires ad interim.
- William A. Stoltzfus, Jr. (1972-1974) – Ambassador to Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and United Arab Emirates, working out of Kuwait.
- Joseph W. Twinam (1974-1976) – First ambassador in residence in Manama.
- Wat T. Cluverius, 4th (1976-1978)
- Robert H. Pelletreau, Jr. (1979-1980)
- Peter A. Sutherland (1980-1983)
- Donald C. Leidel (1983-1986)
- Sam H. Zakhem (1986-1989)
- Charles Warren Hostler (1989-1993)
- David S. Robins (1993-1994) – Chargé d’Affaires ad interim.
- David M. Ransom (1994-1997)
- Johnny Young (1997-2001)
- Ronald E. Neumann (2001-2004)
- William T. Monroe (2004-2007)
- J. Adam Ereli (2007-2011)
- Thomas Charles Krajeski (2011 – 2014)
- William Roebuck (2014 - )
