Islamabad: Pakistan's new military spy Chief, Lt Gen Ahmad Shujaa Pashabriefed lawmakers on the internal security threat, and conflict in tribal lands seen as al-Qaeda and Taliban havens, in a rare closed door session of Parliament on Wednesday.
"It will help evolve a national consensus and formulate a national policy on how to tackle growing terrorism and extremism," Defence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar said.
"Everybody knows the security situation in the country," he said, as troops sealed off roads leading to Parliament and Government buildings, and helicopters hovered over Islamabad.
The briefing by Pasha came as troops backed by helicopter gunships killed 20 militants in Bajaur in the northwest Pakistan is reeling from a fresh wave of bomb attacks after a lull that followed an election in February that brought a civilian government to power and signalled the end of the road for former army chief Pervez Musharraf's presidency.
A suicide truck bomb that killed 55 people and destroyed the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad on September 20 delivered a fresh shock to a country whose best known politician, Benazir Bhutto, was assassinated in a suicide bomb and gun attack last December.
The six-month old coalition, headed by Bhutto's party, is under pressure from its US ally to use more force against the militants fuelling the insurgency in Afghanistan, and harbouring al-Qaeda planners plotting attacks in the West.
Pasha who was appointed director general of the Inter-Services Intelligence last week, briefed an in-camera joint session of the two houses of Parliament.
"There will be a question-answer session tomorrow and it will be followed by a debate by the members for few days," a spokesman for the Parliament said.
It is only the third time a joint session of Parliament is being held in-camera since 1974, but the press gallery was empty.
A brewing economic crisis is also threatening to overwhelm the Government headed by President Asif Ali Zardari. America blamed Muhammad Ibrahim Khan, a leader for the Jamaat-e-Islami party said that America was to blame for Pakistan's problems.
"It wants to grab everything and make everyone its slave and unfortunately our weak leadership has not been able to resist,” Ibrahim said.
Pakistan has protested against intensified US missile attacks on militant targets in the tribal lands and in particular against a US commando raid in early September.
Pakistani security forces have launched an offensive in the strategically located Bajaur region, and estimate that more than 1,000 militants have been killed there since early August.
Officials said the security forces, backed by helicopter gunships, killed 20 militants, including eight foreigners, in an offensive in Bajaur on Wednesday.
At the other end of the tribal belt, the army has bottled up fighters loyal to Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud in the mountain fastness of South Waziristan.
Operations have also been carried out in tribal areas around Peshawar, the capital of North West Frontier Province, as militants have become bolder about entering the city. Fierce battles have also taken place in Swat, an alpine valley.
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