Shots heard inside Paris music hall where hostages held; at least 40 dead in terror attacks
Published November 13, 2015
FoxNews.com
Police: Explosion in Paris bar, shootout in restaurant
DEVELOPING – Police were storming a Paris concert hall where up to 100 hostages were reportedly being executed one-by-one, after at least 40 people were killed elsewhere Friday night as coordinated terror attacks rocked the French capital and prompted President Francois Hollande to order the entire nation’s borders closed.
The attacks are believed to have involved at least two suicide bombers, including one who detonated near the city’s Stade de France, soccer stadium where the French and German national teams were playing in a match attended by Hollande. Simultaneous attacks are a trademark of terrorist operations.
“There are lots of dead people,” said a witness believed to have been at the bar of a restaurant that was the scene of one attack. “It’s pretty horrific to be honest. I was at the back of the bar. I couldn’t see anything. I heard gunshots. People dropped to the ground. We put a table over our heads to protect us.”
“There are lots of dead people. It’s pretty horrific to be honest.”
– Witness to attack on restaurant
No one immediately claimed credit, but Twitter accounts linked to ISIS celebrated the attacks. A gunman at one of the attacks, at Petit Cambodge, a Cambodian restaurant in the city’s fashionable 10th arrondisement, was heard shouting “This is for Syria!” as he sprayed gunfire at horrified patrons, witnesses said.
In a brief address, Hollande declared the entire nation under a state of emergency and ordered all borders closed, saying “unprecedented terrorist attacks were underway.” The closures mean no one can leave or enter the nation until the order is lifted.
“France needs to be strong,’ a somber Hollande said. “What the terrorists want is for us to be scared. In the face of terror, we must be united.”
The death toll was expected to rise, and the fate of 100 hostages reported held at a concert hall called Bataclan was unknown, The Associated Press reported. French television was broadcasting the sound of shots being fired inside the concert hall as police massed outside in preparation of an assault on the building.
The hostages were taken at the concert hall where the American rock band Eagles of Death Metal was playing. Julien Pierce, a Europe 1 journalist who was inside the Bataclan, described what he saw to the BBC.
“Several armed men came into the concert,” he said. “Two or three men, not wearing masks, came in with what looked like Kalashnikovs and fired blindly on the crowd.
“It lasted between 10 and 15 minutes. It was extremely violent and there was panic. The attackers had enough time to reload at least three times. They were very young.”
The soccer stadium where a match between France and Germany was going on as the attack began is shown.
Eyewitness Ben Grant said he was in a bar with his wife when the gunshots were fired and he had seen six or seven bodies on the ground. He told the BBC: “I was told people in cars had opened fire on the bar.
Economist columnist Jeremy Cliffe tweeted about the concert hall attack, “some escaped, describing pools of blood and attackers using pump-action shotgun against crowd inside.”
Inside the soccer stadium, stunned spectators huddled together following the explosions, as word of what happened spread. French Football Federation President Noël Le Graët said at least three people were killed and an unknown number injured in the explosion outside the soccer stadium’s main gate. He later issued a statement as midnight approached saying that the danger had passed for those in the facility.
“The Stade de France is secure,” he said. “There is no longer any danger, people will leave normally.”
The attacks spanned at least two Paris districts, the 10th and 11th arrondisements. The 10th arrondisement is a cosmopolitan district lined with restaurants and cafes. It also is the location of the two famed train stations Gare du Nord and Gare de l’Est. The 11th arrondissement is located on the Right Bank of the River Seine and is one of the capital’s most populated urban districts, with nearly 150,000 residents. In recent years it also has emerged as one of the trendiest of the city’s neighborhoods.
U.S. Homeland Security Department officials monitoring the attacks in Paris say there is no known, credible threat against the United States. President Obama, in a hastily-arranged address Friday evening, called the attack an act of terrorism by people with “a hateful vision.”
“This is an outrageous attempt to terrorize innocent civilians,” Obama said. “This is an attack not just on Paris, not just on France, but an attack on all of humanity and the values that we share.”
Obama, who said he had spoken with Hollande earlier in the day about an upcoming economic conference, said the U.S. stands ready to help France, which he called “an extraordinary counter-terrorism partner,” in the investigation.
A U.S. military and intelligence source told Fox News the coordinated attacks likely required “months of planning,” based on their sheer number, the locations including a site where the president was present and the variety of weapons used.
Terror struck in Paris near the same neighborhood earlier this year, when two Islamic radical gunmen stormed the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, killing 12 and wounding 11. The gunmen, brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi, struck to avenge Muslims for the magazine’s publication of cartoons that they believed mocked the Prophet Mohammed. The brothers were killed two days later after a manhunt was capped when police shot the two in a standoff in Dammartin-en-Goele.
During the dragnet, Amedy Coulibaly, an associate of the pair, attacked a Jewish grocery store in Paris, taking more than a dozen hostage and killing four. Coulibaly had killed a policewoman the day before. Couliably was killed when police stormed the kosher market.
