United States ambassador to Libya Gene Cretz

About eight months after he left for consultations in Washington, Gene Cretz, the US ambassador to Libya Wednesday returned to Tripoli to lead a newly reopened American embassy in a free Libya, without Muammar Al Qathafi.

Ambassador Cretz had left Libya to return to the US in January, after WikiLeaks posted his opinions of the fugitive leader's personal life and his habits in a classified 2009 diplomatic cable. Now he is back in Tripoli, a day before plans to raise the US flag over the embassy building in the Libyan capital.

At the time of the WikiLeaks revelations, the Obama administration was considering replacing him. Now he is back to a country much changed since revolutionary forces seized control of Tripoli and forced the authoritarian leader into hiding after an uprising that began in mid-February.

Cretz was nominated to be the first US ambassador to Libya in 36 years by former US President George W Bush in July 2007 after the resumption of relations between the US and Al Qathafi's Libya, and following Al Qathafi's renunciation in 2003 of weapons of mass destruction.

Cretz had kept a relatively low profile in Libya until November, the time of the revelations by WikiLeaks.

Announcing the return of the US ambassador to Libya on Tuesday, US President Barack Obama told the new rulers: "This is your chance. And today the world is saying, with one unmistakable voice, we will stand with you."

In New York, the NTC's prime minister, Mahmoud Jibril, said he expected a new government to be formed in Libya "within a week, 10 days maximum from now,” adding that most of the work has been done, but that it was important to ensure national consensus on the issue.