More than 120 people have been killed in a series of coordinated terrorist attacks across Paris, including a massacre at a rock concert.
Key points:
•Multiple attacks across Paris kill at least 120 people, officials say
•Eight militants killed, including four at Bataclan
•More than 200 people injured, including one Australian
The Bataclan concert hall in eastern Paris was playing host to sold out crowds who had turned out to see US rock band Eagles of Death Metal on Friday night (local time).
Gunmen and bombers also attacked busy restaurants and bars, and explosions were heard near a stadium in what a shaken French president Francois Hollande described as an unprecedented terrorist attack.
More than 350 people were injured in the attacks, about 100 of those seriously.
One Australian, Emma Grace Parkinson, 19, from Hobart, was believed to have been shot and was taken to hospital for treatment.
A witness inside the concert hall said black-clothed gunmen stormed the building and calmly fired AK-47s into the crowd.
Another witness said they heard one of the attackers shout in Arabic “Allahu akbar” (God is greatest), while another person said they heard a gunman blame France’s intervention in the Syrian civil war as the reason for the attack.
Several explosions were heard after a police assault of the venue got underway, with reports later emerging that four gunmen, each wearing explosive belts, died.
Three of the attackers blew themselves up while a fourth was hit by police fire and “blew up as he fell”, a source told AFP.
Eight militants in total were killed around Paris, including seven by their suicide belts, an AFP source said.
Earlier, 18 people were killed when a gunman opened fire on Friday night diners sitting at outdoor terraces in the popular Charonne area, not far from the Bataclan concert hall.
And in the north of the city, several people were killed in three explosions near the Stade de France where France were playing Germany in an international football match, security sources said.
President Hollande was attending the match and had to be hastily evacuated.
A witness said one of the detonations blew people into the air outside a McDonald’s restaurant opposite the stadium.
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.
A French radio reporter who was inside the Bataclan concert hall gave a harrowing account of the “10 horrific minutes” when gunmen entered and fired calmly and randomly at hundreds of screaming concertgoers.
“It was a bloodbath,” Julien Pearce, a reporter for France’s Europe 1 radio station, told CNN.
“People yelled, screamed and everybody [was] lying on the floor, and it lasted for 10 minutes, 10 minutes, 10 horrific minutes where everybody was on the floor covering their heads.
“We heard so many gunshots and the terrorists were very calm, very determined and they reloaded three or four times their weapons and they didn’t shout anything. They didn’t say anything.”
Pierce recounted seeing 20 to 25 bodies on the floor and others very badly injured.
Toon, a 22 year-old messenger who lives near the Bataclan, was going into the concert hall with two friends at 10:30pm 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 dominoes,” he said.
Mr Hollande has declared a state of emergency for all of France and has reimposed border controls, which will restrict freedom of movement as people attempt to enter from other EU countries.
Several Metro lines in Paris have been closed and an additional 1,500 soldiers mobilised around the city.
Survivors from the concert hall massacre were bussed away from the scene, with those uninjured taken to police stations to be interviewed.
source:abc.net.au
STUDIO 3 NEWCASTLE AUSTRALIA 