Tanzanian Minister for Defense and National Service Hussein Mwinyi on Saturday tasked the army to be alert over international security threats, including terrorism.

"Tanzania is still faced with international security challenges, especially those associated with non-traditional actors like human insecurity, radicalization and terrorism, which need serious research to tackle them," said Mwinyi.

Mwinyi made the remarks at a graduation ceremony of the sixth course for 2017/2018 at the National Defence College (NDC) in the commercial Dar es Salaam.

The six valedictory function involved 31 graduates from various countries in the world including Tanzania, Nigeria, Rwanda, Kenya, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Botswana, Burundi, Egypt and Malawi.

The minister said the defence college needed to be encouraged to provide research-based recommendations on matters of national and international security to the government.

"It is my view that the college should work very quickly to develop such research capacity," he said.

Mwinyi said the move would ensure that the college was engaged in policy research on various operational areas related to national security because the country continued to face diverse security challenges that demanded research-based solutions.

"The government sees more relevance of the NDC than ever before essentially because of the paradigm shift in the undertaking of security from the traditional sense to a broader contemporary perspective," he said.

The move, he said, was evidenced by the fact that international security threats had become more of a non-traditional nature manifesting in the form of terrorism, drug, human trafficking and piracy.

Therefore, the college needed to make itself more relevant in terms of providing further skills and knowledge to combat the new security threats, said Mwinyi.

Mwinyi hailed the college for contributing towards the enhancement of regional cooperation and partnership by incorporating course members from friendly countries in security and strategic studies conducted at the college.

He said the graduates had acquired the required knowledge befitting to address contemporary security challenges in their various manifestations.

NDC Commandant Lieutenant-General Paul Massao said in the 2017/18 academic year, a total of 23 course members had successfully undertaken security and strategic studies at the master's level.

Massao said in the same year, at least eight course members successfully pursued security and strategic studies at the diploma level.