US President-elect Barack Obama on Monday named Eric Holder and Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano to lead domestic security efforts in the United States, dpa reported.
Holder will be the United States' first African-American attorney general. One of his first jobs will be overseeing the closure of the US' controversial detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a pledge Obama made during the presidential campaign.
Obama said the choice of Holder, who served as deputy attorney general under former president Bill Clinton, was "even more important in a transition that demands vigilance."
Holder and Napolitano will be part of the first Democratic-led team to lead US security efforts since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.
Napolitano will lead the Department of Homeland Security, an agency first created in a wholesale reorganization after the 2001 attacks. She is known as an expert on immigration and border security from her time as governor of Arizona, which shares a border with Mexico.
Napolitano "knows firsthand the need to have a partner in Washington that works well with state and local governments. She understands as well as anyone the danger of an unsecure border," Obama said.