NATO soldiers are completing two weeks of training in southern Alberta, receiving instruction on how to handle chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear attacks.

About 150 soldiers from Canada, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Denmark, Germany and France have been stationed at Canadian Forces Base Suffield near Medicine Hat.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization course, titled Exercise Precise Response, teaches soldiers how to detect, identify and decontaminate dangerous agents.

Officials said the program, which began on July 15 and ends Friday, introduces small quantities of dangerous agents in a controlled environment.

CFB Suffield is one of only a few bases in the world that has the facilities to train soldiers using live agents, said Maj. Rodger Sloan, the deputy director of CFB's Suffield Counter Terrorism Centre.

The Alberta base is also the only location to offer international group training.

Canada agreed to host the NATO program as part of an agreement made at the 2002 NATO Summit in Prague.

Col. D. Densow, a member of Germany's medical corps, said the soldiers have shared practices and learned from each other.

"The concept has worked out completely," Densow told the Medicine Hat News.

With files from the Canadian Press