The US senate approved on Saturday new American ambassadors to Iraq and Pakistan.

The US senate approved on Saturday new American ambassadors to Iraq and Pakistan.

In a voice vote, the Senate confirmed Robert Stephen Beecroft as the new envoy to Iraq, and Richard Olson to be the new ambassador to Pakistan.

Beecroft will head Washington's largest embassy in the world, amid challenges in US-Iraq ties following the big defeat Washington had paid following the withdrawal from Iraq.
Olson, a 30-year State Department veteran, takes over as Islamabad fears the scheduled 2014 withdrawal of US and NATO combat troops from neighboring Afghanistan.

Beecroft has served at the US embassy in Baghdad since July 2011, first as the deputy chief of mission and, from June, as the charge d'affaires.

He previously served as ambassador to Jordan in 2008-2011, and has held positions at US embassies in Saudi Arabia and Syria.

Until June, Olson served in the US embassy in Kabul as the coordinator for development and economic affairs. He was previously envoy to the United Arab Emirates between 2008 and 2011.

The outgoing US ambassador to Pakistan, Cameron Munter, resigned in May after a turbulent tenure in which a covert US forces raid killed Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden near a major military academy, humiliating the country's powerful army.