Britain has already boosted the capacity of its firearms response to terrorist gun attacks following past atrocities around the world – including in Mumbai in 2008, when terrorists staged multiple and co-ordinated gun and bomb attacks across a major city. 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. Police special forces attacked after midnight and killed the attackers.
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French President Francois Hollande, who was watching the game, was immediately evacuated. As president Hollande has rightly said, they must and will be defeated.
Many Twitter accounts related to jihadists are celebrating the attack.
Rock band U2 has postponed its Saturday night concert in Paris in the light of the deadly attacks across the city Friday night.
Prime Minister David Cameron said he was “shocked” by the attacks and the United Kingdom “will do whatever we can to help”.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel issued a statement saying she was “deeply shaken” by the horrific series of events and that her thoughts were with the victims “of the apparent terrorist attack”.
It was one of a number of simultaneous bombings and shootings that last night had left at least 140 people dead – including three at the Stade de France.
“Janaszak and his friends hid in a toilet where they would spend the next two hours waiting for police to storm the building and rescue the survivors”.
The Paris carnage came within days of attacks claimed by Islamic State militants on a Shi’ite Muslim district of southern Beirut, and a Russian tourist aircraft which crashed in Egypt. “People were falling like dominos”, he told Reuters.
Ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy, now leader of the main conservative opposition party, said, “The terrorists have declared war on France” and backed the state of emergency and border closure. They want to spread fear.
A manhunt is under way for accomplices of gunmen who targeted a concert hall and the French national football stadium and sprayed the terraces of bars and restaurants with gunfire in at least six separate attacks.
If you’re confused or concerned about travel plans to or from France, here is what we know so far.
ISIS had earlier on Saturday distributed an undated video threatening to attack France if bombings of its fighters continued. “This is a awful ordeal that again assails us”, he said.
We’re going to do whatever it takes to work with the French people and with nations around the world to bring these terrorists to justice, and to go after any terrorist networks that go after our people.
At around the same time, on the northern outskirts of Paris, 80,000 people who had gathered to watch France play Germany at the Stade de France heard three explosions outside the stadium about half an hour after kick-off.
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As well, there have been reports of at least two explosions outside Stade de France and a hostage situation at Bataclan theatre with as many as 100 people held captive, BFMTV reports.
