Islamabad: Militant outfits in Pakistan are regrouping as more "cohesive units" to carry out fresh terrorist attacks in the country as security agencies have failed to implement the ban against them, Interior Ministry has said in its new report.

The militant groups have started "reorganising into cohesive and autonomous groups" and are responsible for fresh wave of terrorist attacks in Quetta and Karachi, it said.

The 'jehadi' outfits, including Jaish-e-Muhammad and Lashkar-e-Toiba banned twice by President Pervez Musharraf since January 2002, have regrouped under different names.

The Ministry's report said these terrorist groups, now working quite "independently", were busy in influencing the minds of like-minded people with arguments like "Pakistan was toeing the line of the West and West was hurting Islam."

The Ministry has informed the Government that these "autonomous" groups had now adopted "desperate measures" to strike in various parts of the country.

It revealed that terrorism had become a "defining threat" to national security, 'The News' daily reported today (July 12, 2004).

Both Karachi and Quetta have witnessed several terrorist attacks, including sectarian strikes such as suicide bombings in minority Shia mosques.

Karachi also witnessed an attack on the local Corps Commander of the Pakistan Army, which made officials to intensify crackdown on them.