Ahmad Zia Massoud

Ahmad Zia Massoud احمد ضیاء مسعود
Vice President of Afghanistan
In office 7 December 2004 – 19 November 2009
President	Hamid Karzai
Succeeded by	Mohammed Fahim
Personal details
Born	1 May 1956 (aged 58) Ghazni, Afghanistan
Political party	Jamiat-e Islami
Religion	Islam

Ahmad Zia Massoud (Persian: احمد ضیاء مسعود, born May 1, 1956) was the Vice President of Afghanistan in the first elected administration of President Hamid Karzai, from December 2004 to November 2009. He is a younger brother of the late Ahmad Shah Massoud, the legendary resistance leader against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and against the Taliban. In late 2011, Ahmad Zia Massoud joined hands with major leaders in the National Front of Afghanistan, which strongly opposes a return of the Taliban to power. The National Front is generally regarded as a reformation of the United Front (Northern Alliance) which with U.S. air support removed the Taliban from power in late 2001.

Ahmad Zia Massoud was born on May 1, 1956, in Muqur, which is in the Ghazni province of Afghanistan. He attended the Lycée Esteqlal in Kabul. In 1976, he was admitted to the Polytechnical University of Kabul where he studied for three years. Caught up in the tumultuous events in the country after the communist Saur Revolution he left the university and joined the mujahideen led by his brother Ahmad Shah Massoud in the Panjshir Valley north of Kabul.

From 1978 to 1981, Ahmad Zia directed the resistance forces of Paryan in Haut-Panjsher. Between 1981 and April 1992, his commander and brother Ahmed Shah Massoud named him special representative of the Jamiat-e-Islami party to Peshawar, Pakistan, where the seven principal parties of the Afghan resistance met. During this period he maintained and increased contacts with political leaders of all the Afghan resistance movement, including diplomatic circles and international organizations. He also traveled abroad to make the case for the mujahideen.

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