RAWALPINDI: Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Raheel Sharif on Friday inaugurated state-of-the-art features at the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) – located near Kharian. NCTC’s infrastructure was upgraded with an aim to accommodate foreign armed forces and the country’s Law Enforcing Agencies’ (LEA) demand of being trained by the Pakistan Army. The new facilities’ addition have turned the NCTC as the best counter terrorism training facility amongst the contemporary armies, an Inter Service Public Relations (ISPR) press release said on Friday. The army chief was briefed by Strike Corps-Commander Lieutenant General Umar Farooq Durrani about the various aspects of the centre – which has so far trained 231,000 armed forces’ troops and 3,483 police personnel. Durrani said that the centre – besides imparting anti-terrorism training – has conducted five joint exercises with countries including China, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Turkey. Defence attaches of various countries were also present at the occasions. General Raheel appreciated all the responsible NCTC officials for imparting training with a focused approach to enhance the capacity building of LEAs at the fully equipped facility. He said that Pakistan has been terrorism’s victim for over a decade and has sacrificed a lot but the army has been able to overcome the menace. “We have turned the tide against terrorism primarily due to resilience displayed by the whole nation and professionalism of our security forces,” General Raheel said. The army chief told the officers present at the occasion that there was no doubt that the country’s valiant armed forces have the capability to completely counter any threat and with the nation’s support, it will defend Pakistan at ‘no matter what the cost’.