In 1979, after the communist PDPA had come to power, Pir Gailani fled to Pakistan where he created the National Islamic Front of Afghanistan, a moderate royalist faction. This party was one of the seven used by the Pakistani ISI for distributing CIA-funded weapons to the mujahideen fighting the Soviet occupation. NIFA had the most liberal stance of all the Peshawar parties, and it supported the return of King Zahir Shah from exile.[1] Representing the interests of the pre-war Pashtun establishment, it rejected both communism and Islamism, in favour of "nationalism and democracy."[2]