Who is he?:

A former foreign minister of Afghanistan under President Hamid Karzai and candidate in the 2009 Afghanistan presidential election. A trained opthamologist who was a close adviser to Northern Alliance hero Ahmad Shah Massoud, who was assassinated by al-Qaida on Sept. 9, 2001.

Birthdate:

Sept. 5, 1960, in Kabul. Is the son of Ghulam Muhayuddine Khan, a senator during the last year's Afghanistan's monarchy who hailed from Kandahar province.

His mother was an ethnic Tajik.

Personal life:

Abdullah is married and has three daughters and one son. Abdullah's wife and young son accompanied him to the polls on Aug. 20, 2009, marking what was reported as the first time an Afghan presidential candidate voted along with his wife. He is fluent in Dari, Pashto, and English, and is proficient in Arabic and French.

Political affiliation:

Abdullah is officially running as an independent.

Career:

A trained opthamologist, in 1985 Abdullah joined the Afghan Freedom Fighters and served as the caretaker in charge of health affairs for the Panjshir Valley resistance front. Here he became an adviser and confidant Ahmad Shah Massoud. From 1992-96 he was the spokesman for the Defense Ministry of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, and from 1999 until the fall of the Taliban was foreign minister for the government-in-exile. He was appointed foreign minister in the transitional government and in the first Karzai administration until leaving in 2006. He is also Secretary General of the Massoud Foundation.

Future:

Abdullah ran for president of Afghanistan in the 2009 elections, and after widespread voting fraud was uncovered President Karzai agreed to a runoff vote on Nov. 7, 2009. Abdullah has been heavily using grass-roots campaigning and new media to rally support for his opposition platform, which borrows heavily from the hope-change mantra successfully used by U.S. President Barack Obama in 2008. He has accused the current administration in Kabul of corruption and supports a troop increase in the U.S.-led NATO military effort to rout the resurgent Taliban.

Quote:

"I'm asking you to believe not only in my ability to bring about necessary change and hope in our beloved country, Afghanistan, but I'm also asking you to believe in your own potential to change the course of our history." -- Abdullah's campaign slogan on his website and Facebook page