Hong Kong 'no longer safe' from threat of global terrorism, expert warns

As Britain raised its terror threat alert to the second-highest level in a five-tier system, an international expert said Hong Kong faced a much greater threat of an attack due to the globalised nature of extremism.

Greg Barton, international director of the Global Terrorism Research Centre at Monash University in Australia, said Hong Kong could no longer consider itself safe from extremism that originated from conflicts far from its borders.

His comments came as Britain on Friday raised its threat level from "substantial" to "severe", indicating that an attack was highly likely. Hong Kong's terrorist threat level remained unchanged at "moderate".

Barton said the rise of Islamic State, which has seized large areas in Iraq and Syria, and its recent release of a video showing the beheading of an American reporter, had made local conflicts global.

"Increasingly local conflicts are drawn into global narratives and this is particularly the case with al-Qaeda-inspired movements," he said.

"We have seen this develop in a frightening way in China over the last few years as local Uygur movements appear to have been at least partially subsumed by global jihadis."