> About an hour-and-a-half passed, and although I didn't know it at the time the attackers had by now killed almost everyone in the lobby, the restaurant, and on the first and second floors of the hotel. They had rushed through the third and fourth floors to the fifth floor and I could hear them running around on the rooftop above my head, where they were managing to keep away helicopters belonging to the international forces.<p>Reading that, I can't imagine being stuck in such a situation without weapons. Yeah, a sidearm won't necessarily save one's life, particularly against several attackers, but all it would take is a few people to fight back to subdue the attackers. According to Wikipedia, there were only 'four or five gunmen' and about 200 people in the hotel (42 dead, over 160 rescued): if each person had been capable of resisting, then the attackers simply couldn't have won the day without a significantly larger team, which would have incurred increased cost, opsec risk & operational risk.<p>I can't imagine the terror of being stuck in a hotel room, waiting to die. A weapon might not save my life, but at least it'd give me something to focus on & feel better about.