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The daunting task of keeping hotels secure |
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In a darkened conference room in the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas, retired FBI counterterrorism chief Larry Mefford changes a slide on his PowerPoint presentation, producing an immediate and audible reaction as hotel and resort security officials shift uneasily in their metal chairs. |
On the bright twin screens in the Twilight Room, behind and to either side of Mefford, is a grisly photo of a suicide bomber, taken minutes after an attack. A multicolored band is tied around his decapitated head, his face virtually untouched by the blast, his eyes staring into a moment that has just ended.
'This is what a suicide bomber is likely to look like,' says Mefford, explaining what happens to the body of a terrorist when a vest of explosives is detonated. Gruesome, he admits, but something that is necessary for security chiefs to understand.
Necessary, he says, because suicide bombings at hotel or resort facilities are a serious threat for the first line of defense against terrorism in tourist venues in the U.S. -- the trained security personnel who are watching daily in hopes of preventing such incidents.
Mefford quickly follows with a story of a photo he received shortly after a terrorist attack in Casablanca, Morocco, in 2003, where the heads of 12 dead terrorists were lined up and sent to him as part of the international investigation into the conspiracy behind the attack.
'These Islamic radicals are not satisfied unless they kill their enemies, ' Mefford reminds his audience in a sobering analysis of Al Qaeda's evolution as a terrorist organization. 'And we are their No. 1 enemy.'
The scene at the Flamingo played out in early September. Looking back on Mefford's presentation, in the wake of subsequent terrorist attacks on beachfront restaurants in Bali, his words now seem to have been chillingly prescient.
External Source - For the complete article click here
Source - Travel Weekly
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