India to host 1st counter-terror exercise for Quad countries

Tribune News Service
New Delhi, November 19

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) will host the first-ever counter-terrorism exercise for the Quad countries, including India, the US, Japan and Australia, here at its headquarters on November 21 and 22.

Sources in the NIA said the ‘CT-TTX’ (counter-terrorism table-top exercise) would be the first engagement among the four countries to discuss issues of common interest related to counter-terrorism.

Noting there has been a resolve among the partner countries to take the international counter-terror offensive, preparedness, mitigation and synergy to the next level, the sources said the event would be attended by counter-terrorism officials and security experts from the Quad countries. As per NIA officials, the purpose of the exercise is to assess and validate counter-terrorism response mechanisms in the light of emerging terrorist threats.

Highlighting the objective of the exercise, the officials said the event was aimed at enabling the participating countries to understand the response systems to terror incidents that exist in other member countries. “This will help in the recognition of best practices prevalent in the respective countries. The table-top exercise also aims at improving the inter-agency cooperation between different counter-terrorism and other agencies of the Quad countries,” said an official.