Army chief vows to defend every inch of Pakistan

Says country has turned the tide against terror due to nation’s resilience, security forces’professionalism

ISLAMABAD: In response to recent threats of punitive strikes by Indian leadership after Sunday’s attack on an army camp in Indian occupied Kashmir, Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif has said the army will defend every corner of the country at all costs.

“Let there be no doubt that our valiant armed forces have the capability to counter complete threat spectrum and Insha Allah [God willing] with the backing of entire nation we will defend each and every inch of our beloved country, no matter what the cost,” the army chief said while addressing soldiers of the Pakistan Army on Friday.

General Raheel’s remarks came during his visit to the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) near Kharian, Punjab where he inaugurated state of the art features to upgrade its infrastructure to accommodate foreign armies and the Pakistani LEAs’ growing demand for training with Pakistan Army.

“Pakistan has been victim of terrorism for over a decade and sacrificed a lot but we have turned the tide against terrorism primarily due to resilience displayed by the whole nation and professionalism of our security forces, military’s media wing, ISPR, quoted the army chief as saying.

According to the ISPR, the addition of new facilities has transformed NCTC into the best counter-terrorism training facility among contemporary armies. The COAS was briefed by Lt-Gen Umar Farooq Durrani, Commander of the Strike Corps about various aspects of NCTC and apprised the COAS that so far 231,000 troops of armed forces and 3,483 officers and men of police and civil armed forces have been trained at the centre.

“Besides imparting anti-terrorists training at the centre, 5 joint exercises have also been conducted at NCTC with friendly countries which include China, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Turkey,” the commander explained.

Meanwhile, defence attachés of various countries were also present at the occasion. The army chief also appreciated all those responsible for imparting training at NCTC with a focused approach in enhancing capacity building of LEAs through quality training making best use of this fully equipped facility.