The U.S. Ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, was killed when suspected Libyan religious extremists stormed the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi late Tuesday night, according to Libyan Deputy Prime Minister Mustafa Abushagour. Margaret Coker has the latest on The News Hub. Photo: AP.

U.S. diplomat Christopher Stevens landed in April 2011 in the Libyan port of Benghazi aboard a Greek cargo ship to assume his role as American liaison to rebel forces who had just begun to fight the regime of Col. Moammar Gadhafi.

On Tuesday, Mr. Stevens, who had become the first U.S. ambassador to a free Libya, was killed in Benghazi along with three other U.S. foreign-service officers when suspected religious extremists attacked the consular compound.

Sean Smith, a foreign-service information management officer, was also killed in the attack. The names of the two others killed were withheld until their families could be told.

Mr. Stevens, who was 52 years old, was the first sitting U.S. ambassador killed by hostile forces since 1979 and the sixth U.S. ambassador to be killed on duty.

At the time of the attack, Mr. Stevens was in Benghazi to visit the consulate, housed in the same villa in which he was based when he served as special representative before the fall of Gadhafi.

When Mr. Stevens arrived in April 2011 to take on the job, pro-Gadhafi forces had pushed back rebels along the coastal highway, threatening a bloodbath in Benghazi. Fears of a civilian slaughter prompted the United Nations to authorize armed intervention to help protect the rebels.

Mr. Stevens, who spoke fluent Arabic and had served two prior tours in Libya, worked to turn the rebels into the core of a new, democratic government for Libya. It worked, to a degree: By late August, rebels had seized the capital city of Tripoli, and by late October, Gadhafi was dead.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Wednesday that Mr. Stevens "risked his life to stop a tyrant, then gave his life trying to help build a better Libya. The world needs more Chris Stevenses."

President Barack Obama also praised the slain diplomat.

"It's especially tragic that Chris Stevens died in Benghazi because it is a city that he helped to save," Mr. Obama said. "We will not waver in our commitment to see that justice is done for this terrible act. And make no mistake, justice will be done."

John Christopher Stevens was born in the San Francisco Bay area. He graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in 1982, earned a law degree from the University of California Hastings College of Law in San Francisco, and worked briefly as a trade lawyer in Washington, D.C.

He joined the foreign-service in 1991, serving in Washington, then in postings across the Middle East—Libya, Syria, Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. His passion for the region dated to his service in the 1980s as a Peace Corps volunteer teaching English in a small Moroccan town high in the Atlas Mountains.

In Syria, where he served as a political officer around the time of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, he left the embassy complex to find out what was happening on the ground with everyday people.

As deputy chief of mission in Libya years before the revolution, he took the same approach and told colleagues the Gadhafi regime was weaker than most people believed.

When he was sworn in as ambassador to Libya earlier in May, Mrs. Clinton spoke of his "California cool."

Colleagues said he was levelheaded, and comfortable enough to greet reporters at the Benghazi compound wearing flip-flops. He turned quick background briefings into lengthy and candid back-and-forth discussions.

By the time the Libyan revolution exploded in 2011, Mr. Stevens could have stayed in Washington. But the U.S. needed an expert on the ground who could figure out what was happening during one of the touchiest moments of the Arab Spring.

"He knew how dangerous this was. He had been there before," said Gene Cretz, who at the time was U.S. ambassador to Libya. "He was just so committed to Libya, as soon as he was asked, he was willing to go."

In a video he made to introduce himself to Libyans shortly before he took up his post as ambassador this spring, Mr. Stevens spoke of America's own traumatic civil war, and his optimism about Libya.

"I look forward to exploring these possibilities with you as we work together to build a free, democratic, prosperous Libya," he said. "See you soon."

—Charles Levinson contributed to this article.

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