KARACHI, Pakistan

Four army troops and seven militants were killed in a clash in Pakistan’s restive North Waziristan region on Wednesday, an official statement said.

The clash occurred in North Waziristan's Datta Khel area, near the border with Afghanistan, during a raid on a hideout and resulted in the death of four troops, including a lieutenant, said the statement by Pakistan’s army.

"In intense exchange of fire, four security forces personnel embraced shahadat [martyrdom] including an officer, while one soldier got injured. A large cache of arms, ammunition & IEDs were recovered from the hideout," it added.

North Waziristan – once dubbed the heartland of militancy – is one of seven former semi-autonomous tribal regions in Pakistan where the army has conducted a series of operations since 2014 to eliminate the Pakistani Taliban's mother coalition, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

More than 5,000 suspected militants and over 700 soldiers have been killed in aerial strikes, clashes, and landmine blasts over the past six years. The figures, however, could not be independently verified as media access to the former tribal areas is restricted.

The successive operations have pushed the TTP towards neighboring Afghanistan, and Islamabad claims the terrorist network has now set up bases across the border to attack Pakistani security forces.

The military operation has also displaced over a million people, but the government claims 95% of them have returned to their homes.

The areas, including North Waziristan, have recently been given the status of districts and merged with the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.