Why hotels are easy terror targets

The email on Wednesday from my friend, the managing director of the Taj Mahal Palace & Towers in Mumbai, India, was disturbing and scary:

"We're in a lock down mode here at Taj. (200) guests are in the restaurant with security. I'm locked down on the first floor. The police have control of the whole building and have narrowed five armed men to the sixth floor of the Taj Palace wing and closing in...."

Shortly thereafter the television showed frightful images of the sixth floor on fire, the very floor where I often stay when in Mumbai. Then no further email messages.The hotel attacks in Mumbai are the latest in a string of incidents: Two separate explosions of Western-branded hotels in Islamabad, a bomb detonated at the Marriott in Jakarta. And now, the hotel attacks in Mumbai.

Security of hotels at issue
All call into question the security of hotels and why they are frequent targets.

The Taj hotel in Mumbai is one of the great elegant hotels of India. Built more than 100 years ago, it has been the home to royalty and visiting heads of state for decades. And it is considered one of the two premier luxury business hotels in Mumbai (the other being the Oberoi, which was also attacked). But on any given day, hotel occupancy is predominantly Western, both business and leisure travelers, and as such both hotels stand out as easy targets for terrorists.

Most security experts will tell you that a hotel is a prime "soft" terrorist target: multiple entrances and exits, easy vehicle access and dozens — and sometimes hundreds — of unattended bags in the lobby.

Like the Taj, most hotels are not designed or built as security fortresses, and many older hotels provide easy opportunities for terrorists to move in and out of the hotel virtually unchallenged.

So what can hotel guests do? You need to practice personal awareness every time you check into a hotel.

Personal awareness
Before you even enter the building, look for cars parked near the front entrance. Most large urban hotels now prohibit this practice and many actually inspect incoming vehicles at an outside perimeter area, insisting upon opening car trunks and using under-chassis mirrors. If you see an unattended car parked at the front entrance, report it. The same for unattended luggage in the lobby.

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Mumbai under siege after deadly attack Send photos, reports from Mumbai

In a number of hotels around the world — including some in India — hotel security officers have installed metal detectors to screen incoming guests. The problem — most are either not manned, or are not operating correctly. They only serve as a psychological deterrent against crime, but are essentially ineffective against dedicated terrorists.

Then the multiple entrance and exit problem. It's one thing to put security officers at the front entrance to the hotel, but if side entrances — including employee entrances — are not patrolled and controlled, the security is also essentially useless. Again, if you see entrances to hotels without security personnel, report them.

The bottom line is to be a proactive, aware traveler, and you increase the odds of your security and safety every time you stay at a hotel, wherever it is located.

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Night of horror in Mumbai

		During the encounter a huge fire broke out at the top of the hotel's historic old wing, trapping numerous guests in their rooms. 'In the end the firemen broke the windows of the room and we climbed down the ladder,' the woman said. -- PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS
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MUMBAI - IT'S one of the plushest hotels in India, if not the world, but for one night it became a terrifying battleground, complete with gun battles, explosions and a raging fire.

Eyewitness accounts The coordinated assaults targeted two of Mumbai's best-known hotels, the Taj Mahal and the Trident, with gunmen taking hostages and engaging in gunfights with anti-terrorist squads. Here are some eye-witnesses accounts of the Wednesday night attacks in Mumbai: ... more Australian actress describes Mumbai attacks terror SYDNEY - AN Australian television actress Thursday described the terror and chaos in Mumbai's Taj Mahal hotel as it was stormed by militant gunmen in a multi-pronged attack across the city. Brooke Satchwell, a 28-year-old former star of the soap opera Neighbours, told Australia's Network Ten television that she had just returned to the luxury hotel after stepping outside for a cigarette when she heard gunshots. ... more

'That was, without doubt, the worst experience of my entire life,' said one woman guest after she was rescued by firemen from Mumbai's famed Taj Hotel, which was caught in the middle of a multi-pronged militant attack across India's financial capital.

'It was a very, very painful six hours,' said the woman, who had lain on the floor of a hotel room with 25 other petrified guests, while hostage-taking gunmen roamed the hotel and fought off special units of naval commandos.

'We really didn't know what was going on,' she told reporters.

'But we could hear the army coming through the hotel. We heard the firing and the blasts.'

Military units stormed the hotel in the early hours of Thursday morning to confront a handful of gunmen armed with assault rifles and grenades who had taken hostage an unknown number of guests - many of them foreigners.

During the encounter a huge fire broke out at the top of the hotel's historic old wing, trapping numerous guests in their rooms.

'In the end the firemen broke the windows of the room and we climbed down the ladder,' the woman said.

One British guest told local Indian television that he had been among a dozen people herded together by two of the gunmen and taken up to the hotel's upper floors.

'They were very young, like boys really, wearing jeans and T-shirts,' the guest said.

'They said they wanted anyone with British and American passports and then they took us up the stairs. I think they wanted to take us to the roof,' he said, adding that he and another hostage managed to escape on the 18th floor.

A group calling itself the 'Deccan Mujahedeen' claimed responsibility for the coordinated assaults on the Taj and another luxury hotel, the Trident, as well as several other locations in the city.

As of 6am (8.30am) there were still gunmen holed up in the Taj and for some remaining guests the danger was far from over.

One woman contacted on her phone by a television channel, said she and around 35 other guests were boarded up inside one of the rooms.

'We were shot at and we have one man who has a bullet wound in his stomach,' she whispered over the phone.

'He's bleeding badly and he needs to go to hospital.'

The woman said the security forces had been in contact with her group during the night.

'They've been telling us to stay quiet and lay low,' she said. 'I think they're waiting for light to break.'

Another Taj guest said he got out from the 18th floor via the fire escape.

'There was a lot of smoke so I couldn't see well, but I could hear bomb sounds,' he said.

'I could hear other guests in their rooms. I tried knocking on some of the doors, but none of them opened,' he said.

The head of the Madrid government and a British member of the European parliament were inside when the gunmen attacked the Taj but escaped unhurt.

'All I saw was one man on foot carrying a machine gun-type of weapon - which I then saw him firing from and I saw people hitting the floor, people right next to me,' MEP Sajjad Karim was quoted as saying by the BBC.

The Taj sits opposite the landmark Gateway of India monument on the edge of the Arabian Sea through which the last colonial British troops departed after independence in 1947.

Legend has it that its creator, a Parsi industrialist called Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, commissioned the building after being refused entry to the now-defunct Apollo Hotel, which had a strict Europeans-only policy.

Completed in 1903, it quickly became the city's best hotel and has arguably retained that accolade to the present day, as well as an iconic place in Mumbaikers' hearts as a symbol of cosmopolitan sophistication. -- AFP

If you have been affected by the Mumbai terror attacks or know of someone who has been caught in the situation, call us at +65-6319-1066 and give us more details. Or send your comments to us.

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