City to train informants amid anti-terror drive

YICHANG, Hubei- Authorities in central China plan on training local residents as informants to bolster a nationwide anti-terror drive.

The public security department in Yichang City, Hubei province, will recruit and train 40,000 whistle-blowers to report on terrorism and violent activities to enhance local security.

The informants will be selected by security departments at the local level, the Yichang public security bureau told Xinhua on Wednesday.

They will then be provided with professional training and have files kept in the departments' archives.

Beyond traditional telephone reports, the informants can report to police via mobile applications like microblog Sina Weibo, and popular instant messaging service WeChat, etc, the bureau said.

Security departments in Yichang are pumping two million yuan ($325,600 dollars) in reward funds to those who provide useful information on terrorism.

The move comes as China increases armed patrols and reinforces public security following a series of violent terrorist attacks recently.

In Beijing, police have increased the number of helicopters, armed patrol vehicles and police dogs monitoring the streets since May.

Meanwhile, China's southern metropolis of Guangzhou set up a special police force in July to cope with "severe and complicated" anti-terrorism work.

Beijing, Shenzhen, and Wuhan, capital of Central China's Hubei province, have also published similar reward announcements.