Paris Terror Attacks: Nearly 140 killed, 8 Assailants Dead

In an attack described by French President Francois Hollande as an unprecedented terrorist attack. gunmen and bombers struck busy restaurants, bars and a concert hall at locations around Paris on Friday, killing nearly 140 people. 

A Paris city hall official said gunmen systematically slaughtered nearly 100 people attending a rock concert at the Bataclan music hall in the deadliest violence to strike France since World War II.

People hug on the street near the Bataclan concert hall following fatal attacks in Paris. Around 100 people attending a rock concert at the hall were killed in the attack. (Reuters)

Anti-terrorist commandos eventually launched an assault on the building, killed the gunmen and rescued dozens of shocked survivors.

Another 40 people were killed in up to five other attacks in the Paris region, the city hall official said. An apparent double suicide bombing was reported outside the national stadium where President Hollande and the German foreign minister were watching a friendly soccer international.

Paris Prosecutor Francois Molins said as many as five attackers were killed, though it was not clear how many there were altogether and how many, if any, were still at large. News agency AFP reported that investigation sources said eight militants were killed --- seven by their suicide vests.

The apparently coordinated assault came as France, a founder member of the US-led coalition waging air strikes against Islamic State fighters in Syria and Iraq, was on high alert for terrorist attacks ahead of a global climate conference due to open later this month.

France has been on alert ever since the attacks on Charlie Hebdo newspaper and a Kosher supermarket in Paris in January killed 18 people.

After being whisked from the soccer stadium near the blasts, Hollande declared a nationwide state of emergency - the first in decades - and announced the closure of France’s borders to stop perpetrators escaping. The Paris metro railway was closed and schools, universities and municipal buildings were ordered to stay shut on Saturday. However some rail and air services are expected to run.

“This is a horror,” the visibly shaken president said in a midnight television address to the nation before chairing an emergency cabinet meeting.

He later went to the scene of the bloodiest attack, the Bataclan music hall, and vowed that the government would wage a “merciless” fight against terrorism.

Hollande cancelled plans to travel to Turkey at the weekend for a G20 summit. He called an emergency meeting of his national security council for 9 am (0800 GMT) on Saturday.

All emergency services were mobilised, police leave was cancelled, 1,500 army reinforcements were drafted into the Paris region and hospitals recalled staff to cope with the casualties.

Radio stations broadcast warnings to Parisians to stay home and leave the streets and urged residents to give shelter to anyone caught out in the street.

Spectators invade the pitch of the Stade de France stadium after the international friendly soccer match between France and Germany in Saint Denis, outside Paris, Friday, November 14, 2015. Hundreds of people spilled onto the field of the Stade de France stadium after explosions were heard nearby during a friendly match between the French and German national soccer teams. (AP)

“We know where these attacks come from”

The deadliest attack was on the Bataclan, a popular concert venue where the Californian rock group Eagles of Death Metal was performing. The concert hall is just a few hundred metres from the former offices of the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, which was the target of a deadly attack by Islamist gunmen in January.

Witnesses in the hall heard the gunmen shout Islamic slogans and slogans condemning France’s role in Syria.

“We know where these attacks come from,” Hollande said, without naming any individual group. “There are indeed good reasons to be afraid.”

Two explosions were heard near the Stade de France in the northern suburb of Saint-Denis, where the France-Germany friendly soccer match was being played. A witness said one of the detonations blew people into the air outside a McDonald’s restaurant opposite the stadium.

A French policeman assists a blood-covered victim near the Bataclan concert hall. (Reuters)

The match continued until the end but panic broke out in the crowd as rumours of the attack spread, and spectators were held in the stadium and assembled spontaneously on the pitch.

Police helicopters circled the stadium as Hollande was rushed back to the interior ministry to deal with the situation.

In central Paris, shooting erupted in mid-evening outside a Cambodian restaurant in the capital’s 10th district.

Eighteen people were killed when a gunman opened fire on Friday night diners sitting at outdoor terraces in the popular Charonne area nearby in the 11th district. Police appeared to be still searching for suspects later.
There were also unconfirmed reports of shooting in other locations, including the central Les Halles shopping centre.

“Bodies everywhere”

Julien Pearce, a journalist from Europe 1 radio, was inside the concert hall when the shooting began. In an eyewitness report posted on the station’s website, Pearce said several very young individuals, who were not wearing masks, entered the hall while the concert was under way armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles and started “blindly shooting at the crowd”.

“There were bodies everywhere,” he said.

Police stand outside the Stade de France where explosions were reported to have detonated outside the stadium during the France vs German friendly soccer match near Paris. (Reuters)

Toon, a 22 year-old messenger, who lives near the Bataclan was going into the concert hall with two friends at around 10.30 pm (2130 GMT) when he saw three young men dressed in black and armed with machine guns. He stayed outside.

One of the gunmen began firing into the crowd. “People were falling like dominos,” he told Reuters. He said he saw people shot in the leg, shoulder, back and several people lying on the floor apparently dead.

There was no immediate verifiable claim of responsibility but supporters of the Islamic State militant group which controls swathes of Iraq and Syria said in Twitter messages that the group carried them out.

“The State of the caliphate hit the house of the cross,” one tweet said.

The Paris carnage came within days of attacks claimed by Islamic State militants on a Shi’ite Muslim district of southern Beirut in Lebanon, and a Russian tourist aircraft which crashed in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.

Earlier on Friday, the United States and Britain said they had launched an attack in the Syrian town of Raqqa on a British Islamic State militant known as “Jihadi John” but it was not certain whether he had been killed.

World leaders react

US President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel led a global chorus of solidarity with France and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the “despicable attacks” and demanded the release of the hostages.

Obama called the attacks “outrageous attempt to terrorize innocent civilians” and vowed to do whatever it takes to help bring the perpetrators to justice. Speaking to reporters at the White House, Obama said he would not speculate about who was responsible.

Merkel said she is “deeply shaken by the news and pictures that are reaching us from Paris.” The German leader issued a statement saying her thoughts were with the victims “of the apparent terrorist attack.”

British Prime Minister David Cameron said he is “shocked” by the Paris attacks and violence. He tweeted, “Our thoughts and prayers are with the French people. We will do whatever we can to help.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is currently visiting UK, condemned the attacks and said the tragedy is anguishing and dreadful.

“News from Paris is anguishing and dreadful. Prayers with families of the deceased. We are united with people of France in this tragic hour,” Modi said in a tweet.

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