With terrorism emerging as a major issue in the wake of a series of blasts and Friday's encounter in Delhi [Images], the Congress top brass, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh [Images] and party chief Sonia Gandhi [Images], met in Delhi on Friday evening to discuss the issue and the strategy ahead.

The party core group headed by Sonia met at a time when attacks on churches in parts of Karnataka continued unabated and the Centre issued two advisories to the Bharatiya Janata Party government in the state to rein in the elements responsible.

A special meeting of the Union Cabinet had discussed threadbare the issue of internal security a few days back.

Friday's meeting took place ahead of next week's visit of the PM to Washington where the US Congress is likely to approve 123 agreement to help operationalise the Indo-US nuclear deal.