6 JANUARY 2016

Ø  Counter-terror operations at the Pathankot airbase stretched into the third evening on Monday, even as senior officials said the government was weighing its options on whether to go ahead with the Foreign Secretary-level talks scheduled for next week. By dusk on Monday, senior military officials in Pathankot announced that they had killed a total of five terrorists, while sources in Delhi said the sixth one may have been blown to pieces in a controlled explosion carried out by the security forces around noon in the airbase. By then, it had been more than 60 hours since the terrorists and security forces began exchanging fire around 3.30 a.m. on Saturday. The long-drawn-out terrorist attack revived memories of the Mumbai attacks of 2008, when 10 terrorists held the city to ransom for three days. However, given the fact that there was specific intelligence and the attack was in a very limited area, questions continued to linger over the way the entire Pathankot operation was coordinated and conducted. Prime Minister Narendra Modi convened the National Security Council to take stock of the situation and discuss options for the engagement with Pakistan in the wake of the attack.

Ø  Two alert constables of the Indo Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) force thwarted an attempt by terrorists to storm the Indian Consulate building at Mazar-i-Sharif in Northern Afghanistan, which came under attack on Sunday night.