of violence it had put in circulation – giving rise to the TTP. Between 2004 and 2014, the Pakistan army engaged in a series of military operations to quell TTP militant activity in the region, which had spread across Pakistan, targeting major military bases and civilian centre.28 The detainees discussed in this report were abducted, detained, and repatriated as these military operations were carried out. Until 2010, however, there was no official reporting on FATA residents disappearing across the border, abductions, or that they were being held captive by American authorities. Military activity in the region was not limited to targeting identified outfits of militant activity. It also wreaked havoc across the agencies in North and South Waziristan, creating over 5 million IDPs attempting to escape indiscriminate violence.29 Yasir Wazir described how impossible it was to live as a listed suspected terrorist under the Fourth Schedule status.30 His movement was so restricted that he could not find employment outside a certain radius, nor shift his family to better housing. Upon arrival in Pakistan, many detainees were placed in jails and internment camps by authorities, again without charges. This was possible due to The Actions (in Aid of Civil Power) Regulation, 2011 which allowed for the creation and use of internment centers for FATA’s residents.31 Indiscriminate and harsh punishment for presumed suspicion of terrorist leanings and links introduced new forms of surveillance to FATA, informed detainees’ and their families’ major and daily decision-making, and routinized the effects of violence on their lives, including daily symbols and reminders of fear, limitations, and uncertainty. FATA as a state of exception Following 9/11, the international legal order was contorted to acquiesce to the demands of an American legal system undergoing modification based on the idea that the existing framework could not deal with the new ‘threat to national security’. To facilitate and ideologically support the war on terror, the US Congress passed The Patriot Act, which increased the capacity of law  In 2004, Pakistan’s army began small-scale operations against militant outfits in South Waziristan. By 2009, a full-scale operation titled Rah-e-Nijat was launched in South Waziristan and Rah-e-Rast to contain the spill-over of militant groups and activities into Swat, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Then, in 2014, following the Army Public School attack in Peshawar, operation Zarb-e-Azb came into effect in North Waziristan. 29  Saad Sayeed and Radha Shah write about how dispossession and repatriation in 2016 in FATA involved stories of surveillance and harassment. During the operations, residents reported routine mistreatment at the hands of the army and entire villages were held responsible for harboring and abetting suspected terrorists, under the continued use of the colonial era Frontier Crimes Regulation of 1901 (FCR), a special set of laws to address criminality and punishment in FATA. Sayeed, Saad & Shah, Radha. “Displacement, Repatriation, and Rehabilitation: Stories of Dispossession from Pakistan’s Frontier.” Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik German Institute for International and Security Affairs. April 2017. 30  Under the 1997 anti-terrorism act, wide legislation was introduced to apprehed anyone suspected of terrorist activities. This included a list known as the Fourth Schedule to which names of suspected terrorists could be added, requiring listed individuals to report regularly to police, and which prevented and restricted their travel around and outside the country, public gatherings, and speech, and stripped them of CNICs and froze their assets. One could remain on the list for three to an indefinite number of years. Shigri, Afzal, A. “A Flawed Anti-Terrorism Law,“ Dawn. Dec. 23, 2016. 31  Amin, Akhtar. “Notices Issued As PHC Moved Against Internment Centres,” The Express Tribune. March 2019. https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/478621-notices-issued-as-phc-moved-against-internment-centres 28 12