‘I love killing bad guys’, says Nazia

* US-trained elite force joins terror fight

SIHALA: The chief sniper crouched, took aim, and waited. On command, she and three others sent a volley of .308 calibre bullets crashing through a window and into the heads of four “hostage-takers” more than 100 yards away. All were hit between the eyes.

Exactly one second later, 20 Pakistani commandos smashed the doors open, then used stun grenades and M-4 assault rifles to take out the remaining “terror suspects”. “I love killing bad guys,” said Nazia Tabussim, the only female in the new, US-trained Punjab Elite Force, after a demonstration on Wednesday at a police training school just outside Islamabad.

Nine American instructors, all with special forces or SWAT training, have drilled the elite policemen under a scorching summer sun for six weeks part of a US State Department programme to establish crack local anti-terror units around the world. “There are cops in the States that only wish they had a chance to get this kind of training,” said lead instructor Richard Jones. He said the new force would be “heavily involved” in future anti-terror operations.

“We feel it is important for the country’s stability and for them to be able to take care of their internal problems,” he added. Some of the unit’s 24 members picked from among 600 elite police said the course taught them to have no fear.

During the recent exercise, police sneaked up on a “terrorist hide-out”, put an explosive device on a reinforced concrete wall and set it off, punching a hole big enough to step through and attack.

Ms Tabussim, considered the group’s most accurate marksman, said she’d have no problem pulling the trigger if the target was a real person even Bin Laden himself rather than the paper cut outs used in the training exercise. —AP

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