Hollande presses the cellphone to his ear inside the glass-lined booth overlooking the soccer field, absorbing the horror tearing into the French capital for the second time this year.
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A witness told BFM television that he heard rounds of automatic rifle fire and someone shouting “Allahu akbar!” at the Bataclan.
The message suggested that there will be more attacks in the future.
Approximately eight gunmen and suicide bombers launched coordinated attacks in several locations across the city.
Additionally, three assault rifles were found in an abandoned auto believed used in drive-by shootings that killed at least 38 people at restaurants, suggesting three shooters had been in the vehicle. Only one of those shooters has been accounted for, a terrorist who blew himself up.
Meanwhile, shootings and fatalities have also taken place at Bataclan Concert Hall, and more than 100 people are being held hostage inside of the venue (pictured above). Authorities said police shot the other assailant, exploding his suicide vest.
The rise in the official death toll – it had been 129 on Saturday – was expected, and it was likely to rise further.
Later, however, he learned that one of his friends was killed in the attack and another is in critical condition. Reports say French President Francois Hollande was watching the match and had been moved to safety.
Parisians remained on edge.
Hundreds of mourners who had gather outside the Petite Cambodge and Le Carillon restaurants, where at least 19 people were killed, scattered at the sight of a suspicious vehicle, and police drew their weapons.
Responding to the attacks, President Francois Hollande said France – which is already bombing ISIS targets in Syria and Iraq as part of the U.S.-led coalition, and has troops fighting militants in Africa – “will be merciless toward the barbarians of Islamic State group”.
“The smell of death will never leave their noses as long as they lead the convoy of the Crusader campaign”, it said, adding that ISIS militants “are proud of fighting Islam in France and striking the Muslims in the land of the Caliphate with their planes, which did not help them at all in the streets of Paris and its rotten alleys, and this attack is the first of the storm and a warning to those who wish to learn”.
“It (The restaurant) was full because it was Friday night”.
This much is certain.
Alert security guards stopped one of the assailants when they subjected him to a pat-down as he attempted to enter through the stadium turnstiles.
At three others were killed at the Stade de France, which is the country’s most famous football stadium. Police said that at 9:50, a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a McDonald’s restaurant near the stadium, but no one else was hurt.
Gunmen in a rented Seat Leon open fire on a La Bonne Biere bar on La Fontaine au Roi street, just around the corner from the restaurant shootings. Had he been in Paris, it’s possible he would have been at Le Petit Cambodge with his friends. Fifteen people were killed.
At 9:20 p.m., an explosion boomed through the stadium. I still remember one girl, she said she’d seen one huge man shooting. The two cafes are only a few blocks from the Carillon and the Petit Cambodge, though going from one location to the other quickly would require detailed knowledge of the small one-lane streets in the area.
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There are reports of attacks in six more locations throughout Paris in addition to the three confirmed at Bataclan Concert Hall, Le Carillon restaurant and Petit Cambodge Restaurant.
