ELB wrote:Dave2 wrote:Redneck_Buddha wrote:In Mumbai I visited a ton of the sites that were attacked in Colaba. Leopold Cafe is a sitting duck right on a corner with two wide, wide open entrances near either side of the corner. All the terrorists had to do was waltz in and start blasting.
Well, yeah, but if they arrange things so that the terrorists
can't "just waltz in and start blasting", then their customers can't just waltz in and start buying.
...
The Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai had exactly this "waltzing" dilemma prior to the attack. Because of its fame and the types of guests is attracted, it was already on everybody's list of likely targets. Security experts and police had recommended a number of changes, one of them going to a single, well guarded and screened entry and exit point for guests. The hotel resisted this for exactly the reasons given above -- it would greatly inconvenience the guests and intrude on the experience. They did up their security a bit, and had a reasonably well-trained -- but unarmed -- security staff, but they did not want to become a "fortress."
This had two consequences, one obvious, one not so obvious. Obviously it made it easy for the armed terrorists to enter, but the non-obvious consequence was that it also made it easy for unarmed terrorists to carefully scout the hotel before hand. An American citizen with Pakistani father and American mother -- and blond hair and Caucasian features -- was used to reconnoiter the hotel, and his reports and pictures were used to build a map to train the strike team with. He was able to roam the hotel pretty much at will even though he was not a guest there. When the attack kicked off, the terrorists in the hotel knew almost every nook and cranny of it. Unfortunately, the police had not been so diligent, and they were largely ignorant of the layout of the place -- it took quite a bit of time for them to obtain floor plans once the attack started.
Btw, these two books:
The Siege: 68 Hours Inside the Taj Hotel
Pakistan and the Mumbai Attacks: The Untold Story
have a lot of info on the Mumbai attacks. I think the first one is by far the better of the two, but the second one has some information not included in the first one. Lots of similarities with the Nairobi and Paris attacks, which gives you food for thought for how to handle being in one of these events.
Thanks for all the additional info!