New Saudi King Abdullah performs prayers during special prayers for late King Fahd at Riyadh's Turk bin Abdullah mosque Tuesday Aug. 2, 2005. The late king died early Monday, the Saudi royal court said. He was 84. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

Abdullah is a senior member of a powerful circle of Saudi princes. Technically, he has been running the country as crown prince since his half-brother King Fadh suffered a debilitating stroke in 1995.

He was born in Riyadh in 1924 and was given a traditional Islamic education. His first public job was as mayor of Mecca and in 1963, he ascended to the job of deputy defence minister and commander of the National Guard.

Abdullah is said to be is a cautious reformer and has overseen modest economic and political liberalization.

It was under his leadership that Saudis voted in February 2005 in the first elections ever to be held in the Kingdom. The municipal polls had little impact on the power structure, and women were excluded from the vote, but many saw the move as a possible start to democratic reform.

The new king is said to understand the need for close ties to the West, and to the U.S. in particular. But he also knows he must also pay attention to growing anti-U.S. sentiment in his Kingdom and the resistance to change from conservative elements. “Saudi Arabia is in deep trouble,” says York University political scientist Saeed Rahnema, who specializes in Middle Eastern politics.

“On the one hand, there is pressure for the improvement of the situation of women and youth, and on the other hand there is pressure from the fundamentalists to push things back down further.”

On the international stage, Abdullah has been keen to keep close links with other Arab countries and has mediated in Middle Eastern disputes. In a biographical entry from the website for Kingdom’s embassy in Washington, he is described as being particularly concerned about “peace in the Middle East and the plight of the Palestinians.”

He has criticized U.S. support for Israel as well as Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories, suggesting that Arabs might normalize relations with Israel if it withdrew to the 1967 boundaries.