Terrorists Increasingly Targeting Hotels

From Gary Thomas of VOA:

A new study by a private intelligence firm says terrorist attacks on hotels have risen dramatically in recent years. The group says tighter security at embassies and consulates has caused al-Qaida and allied groups to shift their attention to easier targets.

An armored vehicle stands posted outside the re-opened Ritz-Carlton hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia, 30 Jul 2009

Before September 11, 2001, al-Qaida made a name for itself by attacks on Western military and diplomatic targets, such as the USS Cole and the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

But the private intelligence firm STRATFOR says tough security measures implemented since the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington have forced al-Qaida and its allies to strike soft targets like hotels.

"The militants are shifting away from harder targets. As security measures are put in place at airports, we've seen a shift kind of away from aircraft to embassies. And then as embassy security was ratcheted up, we saw another shift over towards hotels. And so really there's kind of a line as security that is tightened at certain targets; it makes other targets more vulnerable to militants," said

Scott Stewart, STRATFOR's Vice President for Tactical Intelligence:

Stewart adds that the fact that hotels are now targeted says something about how al-Qaida has changed. "We really saw al-Qaida going from being 'al-Qaida the core group,' where they had a small group of highly trained professional terrorist operatives, into more of what we call 'al-Qaida the movement,' where we have these regional franchises or going towards the grassroots guys - the kind of do-it-yourself militant operative. And those people don't have the same skill level as the professional al-Qaida operatives. And so they also tend to gravitate more towards the easier targets to strike," he said.

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