MARRIOTT RACKED BY TERRORIST ATTACKS

AAH QUESTIONS WHY HOTEL WOULD SNUB COUNTER-TERROR GROUP AND WELCOME ALLEGED TERROR FRONT

(Coral Springs, FL) Since the Al-Qaeda operation targeting America in September of 2001, the Marriott Corporation has been greatly affected by radical Islamic terrorism.

The affects include:

• September 10, 2001 - Three of the 9/11 attackers spent the night at the Marriott Residence Inn in Herndon, Virginia, only to guide a plane into the Pentagon the following day. The three attackers included Hani Hanjour and Nawaf al-Hazmi.
• September 11, 2001 - The New York Marriott World Trade Center hotel was destroyed and the 504-room Marriott Financial Center was severely damaged, during the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. Two Marriott hotel managers were killed.
• June 14, 2002 - The Marriott Hotel in Karachi, Pakistan had its windows blown out, as a car bomb went off on the main road near the hotel and the U.S. Consulate. Eleven people were killed in the attack, and 51 were injured, including an American.
• August 5, 2003 - The Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia was the target of a suicide car bomb attack. CBS News described it as a "bloody inferno." 14 people were killed, and nearly 150 were injured, including two Americans.
• October 28, 2004 - The Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan suffered extensive damage to its lobby, as a bomb went off inside the hotel. 15 people were injured in the attack, including an American diplomat.

After all of these atrocities, the Marriott had decided to allow the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) -- a group that has had numerous officials connected to terrorist activity -- to host their annual banquet in one of its hotels. They also allowed an individual to speak at the event, who had been called, by U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White, a potential unindicted coconspirator in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. The banquet took place yesterday, December 3rd, at the Crystal Gateway Marriott in Arlington, Virginia.

To compound the situation, the Marriott had condoned the rejection by one of its hotels -- the Marriott Georgetown University Conference Hotel -- of a counter-terror group, the People's Truth Forum, from holding a symposium at the hotel. One of the reasons the Marriott gave for this was that it was "based upon business considerations."

Joe Kaufman, the Chairman of Americans Against Hate, stated, "We do not understand how a hotel chain that has gone through so much, with regard to the horrors of terrorism, could embrace a group that has had so many noted ties to terrorism and an individual that was allegedly tied to a terrorist bombing. This, while rejecting an organization that is actively working to fight terrorism! We understand the bottom line, but with all that the Marriott has suffered, doesn't this subject warrant just doing the right thing? We call on the Marriott to never allow any group or individual that has even borderline connections to terrorism into one of its hotels again."

Joe Kaufman is available for interview. E-mail: joe4rep@gate.net.

© 2005 Americans Against Hate