Orakzai was the leading army general who led the Pakistan combatant forces in response to the American invasion of Afghanistan as an aftermath of the terrorist attacks in the United States.

[1] Passing out from Pakistan Military Academy with the 38th PMA Long Course, he was commissioned as a Second lieutenant in 1967 in the 14th Battalion of the Frontier Force Regiment.

Court-martial Lieutenant-General Ziauddin Butt held Orakzai, responsible for the coup d'état against Former Prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

He responded by deploying hundreds of Mountaineering and Infantry battalions to guard the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, many of whom were redeployed as a result of the 2001 Indian Parliament attack.

Immediately after his retirement, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz appointed him as the Governor of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.

According to the BBC as governor, his assignment was to bring stability and security to the FATA region.

Soon, a bloody tribal conflict between the Pakistan Armed Forces ended the peace deals.