The Pakistani army reports that five terrorists have been killed in North Waziristan.

At least five terrorists were killed in an intense exchange of fire during an operation by security forces in North Waziristan district of the restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, according to a media report on Saturday.

Weapons and ammunition were also recovered during the operation on Friday,” Dawn.Com said quoting a statement from the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the military’s media affairs wing.

The security forces conducted an intelligence-based operation in the Mir Ali area on the reported presence of terrorists. “An intense exchange of fire took place during the operation and five terrorists, including their commander, Rahzaib Khuray, were killed,” it said.

The statement claimed that the slain terrorists had been actively involved in numerous terrorist activities against security forces as well as extortion and targeted killings of civilians.

“Sanitisation operation is being carried out to eliminate any other terrorist found in the area as the security forces are determined to wipe out the menace of terrorism from the country,” the military added.

Pakistan has witnessed an uptick in terror activities in recent months, especially in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, after the banned militant Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) ended its ceasefire with the government last year.

Pakistan has been facing a rise in violence in the wake of the Taliban seizing power in Afghanistan in August 2021 as the TTP terrorists and other affiliated groups have repeatedly attacked the security and military installations in Pakistan, which has claimed that they are backed by Afghan Taliban.

Earlier this month, as many as 25 soldiers of the Pakistan Army were killed in two separate incidents on a single day, including a terrorist attack in Dera Ismail Khan, claiming lives of 23 soldiers on December 12 and a military operation in the Kolachi and Dara­zi­nda areas of the KP that saw two army personnel losing their lives.

Pakistan police and security forces continue their actions against terrorists, many of whom are killed and some arrested. On December 21, Pakistani police arrested nine terrorists, including the mastermind and seven facilitators, involved in the December 12 terror attacks in the restive Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province. Six terrorists linked to Tehrik-e-Jihad Pakistan (TJP), a newly formed militant group that is an affiliate of the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), rammed an explosive-laden truck into the security post in Dera Ismail Khan in the South Waziristan tribal district.

According to statistics released by the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS) regarding suicide attacks in 2023, the country witnessed the highest number of suicide attacks since 2014 during this year, with nearly half of them targeting the security forces.