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10,000 rooms, 70 restaurants and multiple helipads: Saudi Arabia reveals plans for world's largest hotel to cater for Muslims on annual pilgrimage to Mecca

By Emily Payne for MailOnline  10:47 21 May 2015, updated 15:49 21 May 2015

• The Abraj Kudai, will be located in the holy city of Mecca, a city visited each year by more than 15 million Muslims
• With twelve 44-story towers containing 10,000 rooms, the hotel, will have a total area of 1.4 million square metres
• £2.25billion project will feature 70 restaurants, whole floors devoted to royalty and one of world's largest domes
• The Venetian and The Palazzo, Las Vegas, is the currently world's largest hotel with 4,049 suites and 4,059 rooms

Plans have been unveiled to build the world's largest hotel, which could be open as early as 2017.

The Abraj Kudai, will be located in the holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia, a city visited each year more than 15million Muslims.

With twelve 44-story towers containing 10,000 rooms, the hotel, which is being created by multi-national design group Dar Al Handasah will have a total area of 4.6 million square feet. 

  Plans reveal what the Abraj Kudai, the luxurious four-to-five-star hotel in the heart of the holy city of Mecca will look like With 12 towers containing 10,000 rooms, the hotel, which is being created by Dar Al Handasah, will have an area of 4.6 million square feet

Work has already begun on the £2.25billion project, which will feature 70 restaurants, multiple helipads, whole floors devoted to royalty and one of the largest domes in the world, according to reports by design website designMENA.

Ten of the towers will cater for four-star guests, while the remaining two will offer luxurious five-star amenities.

On its website, Dar Al Handasah states: 'With a total site area of approximately 60,000 m² and total built-up area of around 1.4 million m², the project is a residential and commercial complex that consists of a large podium topped by 12 towers accommodating several elements such as a podium housing a bus station, a shopping mall, restaurants and food courts, a convention center and car parks.

The five star towers offer all related services for the visitors of the Holy Kaaba. 

The interiors - expected to match the opulence expected of the local area will be designed by London-based Areen Hospitality design practice. 

Much of Mecca's historic architecture has now been demolished, including the house of Khadijah, the wife of Muhammad, and the house of Abu Bakr, which is now the site of the Hilton hotel. 

 The 475-foot Venetian and The Palazzo in Las Vegas is the currently world's largest hotel, 36 stories, 4,049 suites and 4,059 rooms

While many buildings were destroyed to make way for accommodation and facilities for the influx of prilgrims each year, some of the destruction is due to Saudi Wahhabism, which fears that placing significance on religious places may lead to shirk or idolatry.   

Many of the world's largest hotels are currently situated in Las Vegas, where until the Abraj Kudai opens, the Venetian and The Palazzo is the world's largest hotel. 

With 4,049 suites and 4,059 rooms, the hotel is 36 stories and is 475 feet high and known for its singing gondoliers. 

The Venetian and The Palazzo hold the current record

 The enormous 30-floor MGM Grand Hotel, located on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada, contains 6,852 rooms   The colourful First World World Hotel in the Genting Highlands, Malaysia, has 6,118 rooms, and eleven official restaurants The Izmailovo Hotel in Moscow was built in 1979 and was the world's largest hotel until the opening of the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas Another Las Vegas behemoth: The striking, shiny Wynn and Encore towers boast a massive 111,000 square foot casino  
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What do you make of this maddening violence and massacre of innocent humans?

I can think of no answer other than the fact that one earns higher wages being a terrorist than being a peaceful citizen.

It appears that these cut-throat terrorists philosophy is to enjoy in the revelry of destruction till you get killed.  

' 'ISIS terrorist' is seen offering a peace sign as he arrives in Europe aboard a migrant boat just one month before he would be accused of killing scores of tourists in Tunisian museum massacre 

By Simon Tomlinson and Hannah Roberts for MailOnline  13:29 21 May 2015

• Abdel Majid Touil smirked for camera after being rescued in Mediterranean
• Expelled from Italy before travelling to Tunisia to 'plan museum massacre'
• After attacks, he managed to re-enter Italy where he was arrested this week

Flashing the peace sign for the camera, this is the suspected Islamic State militant arrested over the Tunisian museum massacre arriving in Italy just a month before the killings.

Abdel Majid Touil, 22, was pictured smirking at a Sicilian port in February after smuggling himself into Europe on a boat full of migrants while allegedly planning the attack.

Weeks later, gunmen carried stormed the Bardo Museum in Tunis, killing 21 tourists including British mother-of-two Sally Adey.

 Cocky: Suspected Islamic State militant Abdel Majid Touil flashes the peace sign after arriving in Italy on a boat full of migrants just a month before the Tunisian museum massacre which he is accused of planning   Brazen: Touil (right) was pictured smirking for the camera at a Sicilian port in February after smuggling himself into Europe on a boat full of migrants while allegedly planning the atrocity

Touil arrived in Porto Empedocle in Sicily on February 17 using the alias Abdullah after being rescued by Italian authorities on a migrant boat in the Mediterranean.

But he received an expulsion order demanding he leave Italy within 15 days.

From that moment, he disappeared before re-emerging in Tunisia where the authorities maintain he was personally involved in both the planning and the execution of the attacks. 

He then disappeared again and managed to re-enter Italy despite the expulsion order. 

 Smuggled himself into Europe: Touil (circled) arrived in Porto Empedocle in Sicily on February 17 using the alias Abdullah after being rescued by Italian authorities on a migrant boat in the Mediterranean   Held by terror police: Moroccan national Abdel Majid Touil (above) has been arrested in Italy over the Tunisia museum massacre that left 21 tourists dead after fleeing across the Mediterranean on a migrant boat A CCTV image shows two of the gunmen who attacked Tunisia's National Bardo Museum in March holding their guns in a room as a man runs away. Two attackers were shot dead, while a third went on the run. Italian police today said they had arrested a Moroccan suspect in the northern Italian town of Gaggiano The room in Gaggiano, near Milan, Italy, where Abdelmajid Touil was arrested on Tuesday evening

He was arrested at the home he shares with his mother and brothers in Gaggiano, near Milan, on Tuesday night. 

The accusations listed in the Tunisian arrest warrant include premeditated murder, conspiracy to commit attacks against the internal security of the state, belonging to a terrorist group and recruiting and training others to commit terrorist attacks, police said. 

Police were able to identify him in part after his mother reported that her son's passport was missing immediately after the Bardo attack.  

Bruno Megale of the anti-terrorism Digos police said: 'He did not appear to frequent mosques close to fundamentalism in Italy and was unknown to us apart from the deportation order before the intelligence came from the Tunisian authorities.' 

 A view of the building in Gaggiano, near Milan, where Abdel Majid Touil was arrested by terror police Prosecutor Bruno Megale speaks during during a press conference by Italian police in Milan about the arrest of a Moroccan man, Abdel Majid Touil

CCTV footage shows armed attackers inside Tunisia museum

Extradition procedures will now begin, it is understood, but Tunisia could face difficulties because the death penalty could be imposed for the crimes of which he is accused. 

A neighbour in Gaggiano claimed Touil could not have taken part in the attacks in Tunis in March because he had been in Italy at the time.

The woman told ANSA news agency: 'He is a good kid. You are making a serious mistake. 

'He has done nothing. At the time of the attack he was here. He is looking for work.'  

His brother has also told investigators that Touil was in Italy at the times of the shooting. 

 Terrified: Tourists and visitors from the Bardo museum are evacuated in Tunis after gunmen opened fire Blood stains on the ground as journalists and security forces stand at the visitors entrance of the National Bardo Museum in Tunis on March 19 in the aftermath of an attack on foreign tourists in the Tunisian capital

Italian couple films video during Bardo museum attack

News of his arrest follows warnings by Libyan authorities that ISIS militias in Libya are using migrant boats to smuggle jihadis into Europe. 

A police spokesman said: 'A Moroccan national, wanted internationally, was arrested yesterday evening in a town in the Milan region.

'The Tunisian authorities suspect him of having taken part in the Bardo attack.' 

 Mother-of-two Sally Adey was killed in the terror attack on the Bardo National Museum in Tunis, dying off wounds to her stomach and pelvis

Milan's prefecture was expected to provide more details at a press conference later in the day.

The Bardo attack on March 18 in the capital Tunis killed 22 people in total.   

Two Tunisian assailants who had shot tourists as they got off buses outside the museum were gunned down at the scene after taking hostages inside the museum. 

Tunisia's President Beji Caid Essebsi said a few days after the attack that a third gunman was on the run. 

ISIS claimed responsibly for the massacre, the deadliest involving foreigners in Tunisia since a 2002 suicide bombing on the island of Djerba. 

The terror group issued a statement and audio on jihadi websites applauding the dead gunmen as 'knights' for their 'blessed invasion of one of the dens of infidels and vice in Muslim Tunisia'.

The government said the two gunmen had trained in jihadi camps in Libya before the attack inside the heavily secured Tunisian parliament compound.

Among the dead were 17 cruise ship tourists, including British mother-of-two Sally Adey. They also included a Tunisian policeman.  

Mrs Adey, 57, from Shropshire, had been on a cruise of the Mediterranean with her husband, Robert, and was on an excursion to the museum. 

A coroner ruled at an inquest in March that the the retired solicitor died from wounds to her stomach and pelvis. 

Police in Tunisia have arrested five people described as directly tied to the two gunmen.

Four others said to be supporters of the cell were also arrested in central Tunisia, not far from where a group claiming allegiance to Al Qaeda's North African branch has been active.

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