Every inch of country to be defended, says COAS

RAWALPINDI: Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) General Raheel Sharif on Friday said that with the backing of the entire nation, the armed forces will defend each and every inch of Pakistan at all costs.

“Let there be no doubt that our valiant armed forces have the capability to counter complete threat spectrum and Inshallah with the backing of entire nation, we will defend each and every inch of our beloved country, no matter what the cost,” General Raheel said while speaking to officers and Jawans during a visit to the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC)

located near Kharian. The army chief inaugurated state-of-the-art features to upgrade its infrastructure to accommodate foreign armies and the country’s law enforcing agencies’ growing demand for training with the Pakistan Army. He said every sacrifice will be offered for the defence of the motherland.

General Raheel said Pakistan has been a victim of terrorism for over a decade and sacrificed a lot but the tide against terrorism has been turned primarily due to resilience displayed by the whole nation and professionalism of security forces. The COAS appreciated all those responsible for imparting training at the NCTC with a focused approach in enhancing capacity building of law enforcing agencies through quality training, making the best use of this fully-equipped facility.

The army chief was briefed by Lt Gen Umar Farooq Durrani, who is the commander of the strike corps, about various aspects of NCTC. He apprised the COAS that so far 231,000 troops of armed forces and 3,483 officers and men of police and civil armed forces had been trained at the NCTC.

He said that besides imparting anti-terrorist training at the Centre, five joint exercises have also been conducted at NCTC with friendly countries which include China, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Turkey. Defence attaches of various countries were also present on the occasion.