Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Bajwa on Tuesday chaired a high-level security meeting in Lahore hours after a suicide blast killed at least 26, many of them policemen, in the Punjab capita.

“We have fought against terrorism as a nation and key to success is national participation by reporting every suspicious activity to security forces,” said General Bajwa, according to Inter-Services Public Relations.

COAS chaired security meeting at Lhr. "Such incidents can't lower our resolve to eliminate terrorism from its roots" COAS (1 of 2) pic.twitter.com/1dD6t3nDZO

— Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor (@OfficialDGISPR) July 25, 2017

“Such incidents cannot lower our resolve to eliminate terrorism from its roots. We are making gains in breaking connectivity between terror masterminds and their facilitators,” he added.

‘Ready to help Afghanistan’

The Army chief also offered Afghanistan to benefit from Pakistan’s military assistance, adding that people on both sides of the border were the victims of terrorism.

“Regional actors and hostile intelligence agencies are fully involved to use terror as policy tool. Pakistan is ready to help Afghanistan to eliminate terrorist safe heavens in their border areas as we have done on our side.”

General Bajwa also visited Lahore's General Hospital to inquire after those injured in the suicide bomb attack on July 24.

"We hv fought terrorism as a nation. Key to success is national participation. Report suspicious activity to security forces" COAS (2of2). pic.twitter.com/V9E9qkeMuP

— Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor (@OfficialDGISPR) July 25, 2017

The powerful blast Monday hit a busy vegetable market on a bustling main road in the southern part of Lahore, blowing out the windows in nearby buildings.

Many of those killed in the attack were police who were clearing shopping stalls that had illegally encroached on to the road.

On Tuesday distraught relatives carried the coffins of two policemen, brothers who were killed in the attack, to a petrol pump which had been turned into a makeshift prayer ground.

Floral wreaths from local police chiefs were placed on the wooden coffins as family members wept.

Police have said their initial investigations show the attack, claimed by the Pakistani Taliban, was carried out by a suicide bomber.

Lahore has been hit by significant militant attacks in Pakistan's more than decade-long war on extremism, but they have been less frequent in recent years.

The last major blast in the city was in March last year, when 75 were killed and hundreds injured in a bomb targeting Christians celebrating Easter Sunday in a park.

But the country was also hit by a wave of attacks in February this year, including a bomb that killed 14 people in Lahore.

In April a further seven were killed in an attack in the city targeting a team that was carrying out the country's long overdue census.

After years of spiralling insecurity, the powerful Army launched a crackdown on militancy in the wake of a brutal attack on a school in late 2014.

More than 150 people, most of them children, died in the Taliban-led assault in the northwestern city of Peshawar - the country's deadliest ever single attack.

It shook a country already grimly accustomed to atrocities and prompted the military to step up operations in the tribal areas, where militants had previously operated with impunity.

The country has seen a dramatic improvement in security since, though groups such as the Pakistani Taliban retain the ability to carry out major attacks.