HONG KONG -- The Hong Kong police held a counter-terrorism exercise in the small hours Friday at the Hong Kong International Airport to improve response to emergencies such as the discovery of suspicious objects and terrorists taking hostages.

About 200 officers participated in the exercise codenamed "IRONWILL," which was organized by the police's operations wing and inter-departmental counter-terrorism unit.

The exercise comprised two scenarios simulating the discovery of a suspicious object at the airport terminal and an operation against terrorists conducting knife attacks, taking hostages and threatening to detonate a bomb.

The exercise aims to raise public awareness about counter-terrorism and remind people of the proper response during terrorist attacks, the police said, vowing continued efforts to step up counter-terrorism work and strengthen the related deployment and capability to guard against the breeding of local terrorism, the police said.