ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan on Sunday said Joint Intelligence Directorate will be set up for coordination and intelligence sharing among 26 intelligence agencies in the country.

Speaking to the media in Islamabad, the interior minister said Internal Security Policy will be presented before a special meeting of the cabinet on Monday.

He said the aim of the policy is to protect the people of Pakistan by enhancing the capacity of law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

“The policy, which will be implemented in a year, contains steps to protect all areas of Pakistan by using latest technology.”

He said the new security policy will have three components- secret, strategic and operational.

"Under the policy, National Counter Terrorism Authority (Nacta) will be the focal point to tackle terrorism," he said.

Nisar added that a Rapid Response Force supported by an air wing will be set up at the federal level which will respond to acts of terror within minutes. This force will be replicated in the provinces.

The new apparatus will work round the clock to translate thousands of excerpts of chatter, generated every day, into actionable intelligence, he explained.

He said mapping will be conducted in cities to create identity databases of people.

Pakistan, just like other countries, cannot ensure security by manning pickets, so technology would be used to counter terrorism, he remarked.

The minister said that thousands of excerpts gathered by intelligence agencies daily is 20 per cent of the work, the important part is to correlate and translate all the information into actionable intelligence.

He said the aim of intelligence gathering would be to identify networks, whether in cities like Karachi and Peshawar or in tribal areas, isolate them and then take action against them.

The Homeland Security Department of United States hired 40,000 people from different fields to correlate the intelligence gathered by their agencies, he noted.

Nisar said in Pakistan, due to lack of coordination, the intelligence gathered in Karachi, Peshawar or Lahore is not shared and gets buried.

He said under the strategic aspect of the policy, it will be decided when to hold dialogue with militants, when to carry out a military operation and when to do the two things simultaneously.

"Another step will be to strengthen defences of the people by creating a counter narrative in a war which is being fought in an unconventional way, the minister said.

Nisar added that this is not a conventional war as there is no concentrated and visible force against which force can be used.

He said those who remained in power for 13 years, did nothing to hold dialogue or carry out an operation against terrorists.

But now they are criticising the government, which in less than three months started dialogue with Taliban and set a right direction for the country, Chaudhry Nisar said.

Th interior minister said that politics should not be played on security matters and issuing of statements just for point scoring should be avoided.