New Delhi, May 10 -- Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday chaired a meeting of top officials to review how Operation Sindoor, India's direct military response to the Pahalgam terror attack, was unfolding, officials familiar with the matter said on a day it emerged that Pakistani forces on Thursday targeted 36 Indian locations with 300 to 400 armed drones and the military launched a swift counter-attack. The meeting, the latest in a series of security huddles, was attended by defence minister Rajnath Singh, national security adviser Ajit Doval, chief of defence staff General Anil Chauhan and the three service chiefs. It came hours after Singh met the CDS, the three chiefs and the defence secretary to review the security dynamics along the western border where tensions with Pakistan have hit a flashpoint; the minister was also briefed on the military's operational readiness, the officials said. Earlier in the day, Modi met a group of armed forces veterans, including former service chiefs, to discuss the developments unfolding along the western border. Union home minister Amit Shah convened a high-level meeting to review the border situation and evaluate security arrangements at airports.In the nearly one-hour-long meeting, that began at 12:30 pm at home minister's residence, Union home secretary Govind Mohan, Intelligence Bureau director Tapan Deka, Border Security Force (BSF) chief Daljit Chawdhary, Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) chief RS Bhatti, and Bureau of Civil Aviation (BCAS) chief Rajesh Nirwan were present. The meetings came at a critical time when Pakistani forces have attempted to carry out waves of drone and missile attacks across the country's north and west after Operation Sindoor was launched in the early hours of May 7, hitting nine terror sites in Pakistan and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. The operation was given its name by Modi, officials said. It is a reference to the red vermillion that many Hindu women wear in their hair to signify their married status. During the Pahalgam terror attack, the husbands of several women were killed in front of them, including a young Indian Navy officer. On April 22, a group of heavily armed terrorists emerged from the woods and targeted tourists on the Baisaran grassland near Pahalgam. Twenty-six people, 25 of them tourists and 24, Hindu were killed in the attack that was reminiscent of the heyday of terrorism in the 1990s and 2000s and the worst attack on civilians in India since the 2008 Mumbai terror strikes. On Wednesday, India launched Operation Sindoor and carried out precision strikes on terror infrastructure at nine sites in retaliation for the Pahalgam terror attack. India's military carried out "measured, non-escalatory and proportionate" strikes on the terrorist infrastructure to respond to the Pahalgam strike and to pre-empt and deter more cross-border assaults, foreign secretary Vikram Misri said at the time. The next day, the Indian forces thwarted attempts by Pakistan forces to hit several military targets in 15 cities in the country's north and west using missiles and drones, and targeted Pakistan's air defence network at several locations in that country with the ones in Lahore being destroyed in the counter-attack. On Thursday, drone strikes on 36 locations, from Leh, Jammu and Bathinda in the country's north to Sir Creek in the west, sought to hit military infrastructure, test India's air defences and gather intelligence on deployments, two women officials said at a special briefing on Operation Sindoor. Most of the drones were shot down by the Indian forces. The Indian counterattack targeted Pakistan's air defences, they added. It also emerged on Friday that Pakistan is using civil airliners as a shield in its attempt to stave off Indian counterattacks. The same pattern of attacks, and the use of civilian aircraft as shields was also seen in similar attacks on Friday in border areas in Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab that were countered by Indian forces....