The United States is opening up its secret CIA training facility at Moyock in North Carolina for imparting a 5-week "crisis response team course" from October 22 to November 23, which will include high-risk counter-terror raids and night-time training exercises.

It has informed India that the course will be very "physically demanding" as instead of classroom lectures, 85 percent of the training will be done through drills and field lessons. Twenty-four officers of the ranks of inspectors to superintendents of police, drawn from the states' anti-terror squads and central forces, are to be selected for the training to be imparted by CIA and FBI.

A separate 17-day course is to be conducted at the same place from September 10 for the explosives technicians to learn procedures for defeating sophisticated terrorist improvised explosives and incendiary devices. The course also covers advanced targeting and disablement technicals as also chemical and radiological detection.

The Home Ministry has invited recommendations from the DGPs of state police and central police organisations and the CBI for the "crisis response" course by Aug 20.

The ministry officials say the training course will address the deficiencies that resulted in many officers killed in the 26/11 attack as also in the death of Delhi Police inspector Mohan Chand Sharma in an encounter inside a house in the Batla House area in 2008.

They said the participants will get basic skills to resolve high risk terrorist confrontations using a variety of options with the minimum force necessary to protect human life.

The circular warns that 85 percent of the training course is extremely demanding as it involves close quarter battle techniques and dealing with life fire using both handguns and shoulder weapons.

The programme adheres to the "train-the-trainer" methodology to facilitate India's development of a viable anti-terrorism programme within the law enforcement community, the circular says, adding that officers selected will be required to remain in their positions for a minimum of two years. Also, the nominated officers have to be clear from the vigilance angle.