Three soldiers were martyred and three terrorists were killed during exchange of firing at general area Miranshah in North Waziristan tribal district on the night between Friday and Saturday, ISPR told here Sunday. The ISPR said the troops effectively engaged the terrorists at their location and during the exchange of firing, three terrorists were sent to hell, while four terrorists were injured. Weapons and ammunition were also recovered from the killed terrorists. During intense exchange of fire, Subedar Asghar Ali, 40, resident of Lakki Marwat district, Sepoy Naseem Khan, 26, resident of Lakki Marwat district and Sepoy Muhammad Zaman, 22, resident of Abbottabad embraced Shahadat. The sanitization of the area is being carried out to eliminate any other terrorists found in the area. Armed forces of Pakistan are determined to eliminate the menace of terrorism and such sacrifices of our brave soldiers further strengthen our resolve. Earlier this month, Security forces killed two terrorists during an exchange of fire in general area Dossali, North Waziristan district. Furthermore, On May 31, at least two terrorists were killed in an Intelligence-Based Operation (IBO) launched by security forces in the same area on the reported presence of militants. During his maiden press conference, on April 25, as director general of the ISPR, Maj-Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry had revealed that a total of 8,269 intelligence-based operations (IBOs) had been conducted since January as a result of which 1,535 terrorists had been killed or apprehended. Of these, 4,040 IBOs were conducted in Balochistan, another 3,591 in K-P, 119 in Punjab and 519 operations were conducted in Sindh. On average, over 70 IBOs were being conducted daily by the army, police and LEAs since January, he continued. Subsequently, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) registered a decline of 11.9 per cent in incidents of terrorism during the month of April 2023 due to the strategy of prevention through detection by the CTD.