Arun Jaitley on the closed-door meeting held by PM Modi in the aftermath of the Pathankot attacks.

The PM discussed the Mazar-e-sharif, Pathankot terror attacks and the
North East earthquake at the National Security Council meeting, says Jaitley.

"The terror strike at the Pathankot airbase was a fidayeen attack; the objective was to cause loss to its strategic assets.

"We are at a stage when ops are still on and only when they get over we will decide on Indo-Pak talks.

"Terrorists were well trained. Lesson from 26/11 helped us avert a massacre.

"Combing ops still underway."

During the operation, one Garud commando, one NSG officer and five personnel of Defence Security Corps were martyred.

Seventeen security personnel were also injured.

Lt Col E K Niranjan, a member of the NSG's Bomb Disposal Squad and a Kerala resident, died yesterday after he sustained injuries while he was trying to retrieve a live grenade from the body of a dead terrorist. Four other security men were also injured in this explosion.

Three Defence Security Corps personnel also succumbed to injuries during the intervening night of January 2 and 3. Garud commando Gurusewak Singh and two members of the DSC were killed in the gun battle on Saturday at the air base, located barely 35 km from the Indo-Pak border.

The terrorists who had stormed the Pathankot air base were "well trained" and "strongly stocked" with arms and ammunitions to inflict heavy damage to the assets stationed there and that explains the long counter terror operations going on against them, top  government sources said.

They also attributed the long period of operation, which has lasted for three days, to strict instructions by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar not to take "unnecessary risks" to avoid casualties. They added that the effort was also to catch at least one of the terrorists alive, if possible.