Recent Hotel Bombings

A vehicle-borne improvised explosive device in the form of a truck bomb destroyed the Marriott Hotel. More than 1,300 pounds of explosives were used, and the blast created a crater approximately 60 feet wide and 25 feet deep. The death toll in the hotel blast rose to 53, with at least 266 people wounded, officials said on Sunday. Two Americans were among the dead. A videotape was released showing a six-wheel dump truck stopped by security guards at a barrier in front of the hotel’s main entrance. A few gunshots were heard, and after a small explosion front the driver's suicide-vest, the front part of the truck caught fire. It burned for about three minutes as three to four security guards were seen running away and then returning as one guard tried to put out the fire with an extinguisher.

The 2005 Amman bombings were a series of coordinated bomb attacks on three hotels. Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attacks, which killed 57 people and injured 90 others. The explosions—at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, the Radisson SAS Hotel, and the Days Inn—started at around 20:50 local time. The attacks were carried out by Jordanian-born Zarqawi's group consisting of three men and one women. According to Jordanian officials, the attackers were Iraqi and had entered the country three days before the attacks. The three males dies in their homicide attacks, and the female failed in her attempt to blow up the SAS Radisson Hotel with her husband.

Insurgents exploded a cement mixer and two car bombs Monday in a series of suicide attacks on the Palestine Hotel, a base for many journalists in the Iraqi capital. Ten people were killed and 22 injured. The first blast in the Firdos Square area went off around 5:20 p.m. when a vehicle rammed a 2-foot-thick protective concrete wall in front of the hotel and exploded, breaching the barrier. Minutes later, a Jeep Cherokee drove east from the square toward the Ministry of Agriculture. Iraqi police fired at the vehicle before it exploded near a mosque. The cement mixer came seconds later pushing through the hole in the hotel wall faltering in the debris created by the first blast. Then it exploded in a massive plume of fire and smoke. Terrorism experts said the coordinated explosions around the square were designed for maximum exposure. The death toll might have been much higher if the cement truck had gotten closer to the hotel entrance. “This demonstrates their resolve and courage to impact us, to create fear,” said Brian Jenkins, a terrorism expert with the Rand Corp., a Santa Monica-based think tank.

A vehicle-borne improvised explosive device in the form of a car destroyed a hotel. 11 people died and 27 were wounded when a bomb went off next to a hotel in downtown Bouira. Most victims had been traveling in a bus that passed in front of the hotel.

Six Iraqis died and 32 people, were injured when a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device in the form of a car exploded near the Baghdad Hotel, which houses Americans and members of the Iraqi Governing Council. Iraqi security forces fired at the vehicle as it drove through a checkpoint and down a side street near the hotel, where it detonated. The attack reduced nearby structures to rubble and shattered windows blocks away, but the hotel itself was not damaged.

Extreme Terrorism Consulting can work with you to help facilitate a safer place for yours employees and guests. While a hotel has not been attacked here in the United States, the Twin Towers were hit twice in eight years by Islamic terrorists and the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, OK, was destroyed by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols - both are categorized as domestic terrorists.