US exposes ISI subversion of Kashmir issue

WASHINGTON: In a city where lobbyists represent scores of interests, issues, and causes from across the world, Ghulam Nabi Fai was a familiar figure on Capitol Hill as the principal representative of the Kashmiri separatist movement. A stocky man 62-year old man with a scraggly beard sans mustache, he spoke the language of engagement and claimed to seek a peaceful resolution of the Kashmir dispute.

But Kashmiris, of whom he claimed to be one, were not who he was serving. An FBI affidavit charging him with “conspiring to act as an agent of a foreign principle,” shows that Fai was a frontman for Pakistani – and not Kashmiri – interests in the US. He took dictation from his masters in Islamabad and Rawalpindi, and according to the FBI count, was funded to the tune of at least $4 million to manipulate the debate about Kashmir. The FBI recorded 4000 email and telephone exchanges with his Pakistan handlers.

Fai’s career as a Pakistani ISI bagman began as far back as 1989, according to a Confidential Witness (identified as CW-2 in the FBI affidavit) who turned US informant. The ISI, CW-2 says, “created the KAC to propagandize on behalf of the government of Pakistan” and selected Fai “because he had no overt ties to Pakistan.”