Hong Kong: Rioters attacked officers with homemade bomb - police

W/S Outside police HQ in Wanchai
SOT, Tang Ping-keung, Deputy Commissioner of Police - Operation: "Over the past 19 weeks rioters' violence has been escalating and reached an alarming level. Social unrest and rioting have turned Hong Kong into a chaotic and panic situation. I am angered by all these criminal and rioters acts. Rioters brutally beaten up innocent citizens as they pleased and inflict extensive damage to the transport facilities and public properties with wildcat tactics. Apart from vandalising shops, rioters also set buildings on fire and threw petrol bombs with lone-wolf tactics. What's more alarming is that rioters have escalated their violence against police officers. In one of the worst attacks, a rioter stabbed our officer's neck at close-range. This attack shows intent to take his life. Also, yesterday was the first time we found home-made bomb. These rioters launches reckless and ruthless attacks and I must emphasise that Hong Kong society cannot tolerate such lawless acts. For the first time during this social unrest we seized a homemade bomb. At around 8PM yesterday one of our vehicles was passing through Nathan Road in Mong Kok, some explosive erupted just two or three metres away from the car. We believe such explosives were intended to attack our officers. We strongly condemn the manufacturing of explosives and think it is highly dangerous act that can cause heavy casualties." *MULTIPLE SHOTS AT SOURCE*
W/S Press conference
SOT, Suryanto Chin-chiu, superintendent of the HK police explosives disposal unit: "I will recall the technical bit about acquiring of the possible explosive. The explosive itself is believed to be a homemade style, which we encounter in the similar cases in July of this year and such as TATP that we had in July in Tsuen Wan. An attack required a certain level of the chemical knowledge background and experiment to formulate a viable exploisive such as TATP. The way of getting that is required a lot of knowledge, a lot of trial, and at the same time it is very sensitive and dangerous. So, having said that, the readiness or the level they can get the explosive easily is so difficult, it's almost they have to manufacture based on the very knowledge and it would take a lot of time for that to experiment. We are calling the investigation of the idea whether they are based on the terrorism trial"
SCRIPT
For the first time since the unrest in Hong Kong began, protesters used a self-made explosive to attack police agents, Deputy Commissioner Tang Ping-keung informed the public at a briefing from the Hong Kong Police headquarters in Wanchai on Monday.
"At around eight PM yesterday one of our vehicles was passing through Nathan Road in Mong Kok, some explosive erupted just two or three metres away from the car. We believe such explosives were intended to attack our officers", he told the press. No casualties were reported.
The superintendent of the explosives disposal unit Suryanto Chin-chiu, who also spoke at the briefing, was alarmed that the preparation of such kind of explosive would have required some chemical background and previous experience, adding that the material is "very sensitive and dangerous", and compared the attack to an act of terrorism.
Hong Kong has been rocked since March by demonstrations sparked by a planned, but now-withdrawn extradition bill. The rallies have evolved into a movement with wider grievances against the Hong Kong administration.