“The Philippine security forces in posh areas are well equipped, so this could be intelligence failure and a shortcoming on the part of the casino’s security structure too,” Heydarian said. Experience an intimate escape to a cultural oasis where elegance meets the sparkling water of the bay. (148) 1.01 km from Resorts World Manila Pasay, Metro Manila Holiday Inn Express MANILA NEWPORT CITY, an IHG Hotel. Patrons routinely undergo bag inspections and must pass through metal detectors at many malls and hotels in the Philippines, where firearms are readily available and where an Islamist insurgency has seen the declaration of marital law on the archipelago’s second largest island, Mindanao. Sofitel Manila is a 5-star luxury hotel by the bay.

It remains uncertain how the attacker was able to smuggle an assault rifle and inflammable liquids into the complex. She told TIME that the security failure that allowed a gunman into the complex worried her, because she worked as a check-in clerk at Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport, just opposite Resort World, and feared that the airport could be “really an easy target for the Manila area.” “We thought it’s an ISIS attack because what’s happening in Mindanao,” she told TIME. Noreen Gonzales, 21, said she finished eating a meal at the complex just minutes before the attack, and thought it had come under assault from terrorists, describing the panic as terrifying.