Security has been tightened at all PLA barracks and mainland institutions after a warning from Beijing that Xinjiang separatists are planning a terrorist attack.
Police patrols around potential targets, including the central Government's Liaison Office in Happy Valley, the Bank of China in Central and China Travel Service offices, have been increased, a police source told the South China Morning Post. Mobile emergency units - quick response vehicles in each police district which carry an array of weaponry - have been ordered to patrol more regularly around potential 'target' sites.
'It is genuine hard intelligence that all mainland institutions could be a target. Our understanding is that it [the intelligence] came from up north and it refers to a group from over the border who have been creating all kinds of havoc on the mainland,' the source said. 'Beat patrols have been stepped up as have emergency mobile patrols.' The source said the warning was issued in the form of a confidential briefing to senior commanders on May 20. The alert was sparked by an intelligence report passed to the Security Bureau by the mainland authorities. Bureau officials briefed Security Wing officers at police headquarters who issued a confidential alert to district commanders.
The warning is understood to have identified a group of extremists linked to separatists in Xinjiang province in the northwest who have been waging a low-level bombing campaign against Beijing rule for much of the past decade on behalf of the province's largest ethnic Muslim group - the Uygurs.
A spokesman for the Security Bureau would say only that he could not comment on 'intelligence and operational matters'. However, the source said the group might have links with Muslim extremists in the Philippines, known to have links with Arab terror groups in the Middle East.
Immigration officers and the elite police Special Duties Unit - known as the Flying Tigers - which would be deployed in the event of a terror attack, have also been alerted. Before the handover they received specialist counter-terrorism training from, among others, the British Special Air Service (SAS) and the US Navy Seals.