I am deeply shocked and I am not alone. Last night in Paris, short after 10 o’ clock gunmen and suicide bombers simultaneously launch heinous attacks against innocent civilians. Small groups of terrorists attacked first restaurants and bar, Others entered the music hall Bataclan where an American group was giving a concert, they fired shots with Kalansikof and held hostages more than 100 people. A third group entered the Stade stadium where German and French football teams deliver a friendly match in presence of President Francois Hollande.
Panic. Blood. Death.
As medical staff tries to treat the wounded, security forces storm the hall to free the hostages in Bataclan. The four attackers are dead.
Video: Eye witnesses from Bataclan – English subtitles via France24
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La Belle Equipe, 92 rue de Charonne, 11th district – at least 19 dead in gun attacks
Le Carillon bar and Le Petit Cambodge restaurant at rue Alibert, 10th district – at least 12 dead in gun attacks
La Casa Nostra restaurant, 92 rue de la Fontaine au Roi, 11th district – at least 5 dead in gun attacks
Stade de France, St Denis, just north of Paris – explosions heard outside venue, three attackers dead
Bataclan concert venue, 50 boulevard Voltaire, 11th district – stormed by several gunmen, at least 80 dead
Civilian solidarity on Friday night
As several metro lines are closed and people cannot go home and the horror of the attacks spreads around, ” residents of eastern Paris use social media to offer help.
The hashtag #PorteOuverte, or “open door” is established on Twitter, where residents in the affected areas offer shelter to anyone who had been cleared from the streets and had nowhere to wait.”
Hey tourists in #Paris if you need help or some place to sleep around Jussieu 5th arrondissement, my door is open. #PorteOuverte#OpenDoor
French President Francois Hollande address the nation and the international community, declares “state of emergency” for the country and closes all borders. He blames the Islamic State for the attacks and says that ‘this was an act of war.”
France, Europe, USA, the whole world is in shock and awe. It was the first attack of such a scale carried out in a European city, the first deadliest after the Madrid bombing in 2004.
Saturday morning, the Islamic State claims responsibility for the attacks. In an official statement, the group says that “its fighters strapped with suicide bombing belts and carrying machine guns carried out the attacks in various locations in the heart of the capital which were carefully studied.”
The ISIS says further that the attacks were designed to show France “it will remain a target if it continues its policies” like “sending fighter jets to Syria, bombing children and elderly.”
The ISIS statement calls Paris “the capital of abominations and perversion”, threatens with more attacks also Rome, London and Washington.
According to latest information, even though not official, 158 people are dead, 200 injured, 96 of them in critical condition.
The eight terrorists are reportedly killed. Their identity is not officially clear yet, media speak of “young men”, some of them “being French nationals who had joined the jihadists in Syria” and some “may have come directly from Syria.”
According to latest from Guardian’s Live Blog, a “Syrian passport found on body of one attackers – Two French police officials say a Syrian passport was found on the body of one of the suicide bombers at the Stade de France, according to both AP and French television.”
Europe is in shock. And tries to figure out how to deal with the problem. Conservative voices are heard that EU borders need to be closed to the refugees from Syria. The attacks certainly play in the hands of nationalistic movements in Europe.
It remains to be seen how liberal Europe will deal with the declared war against it. But first it has to obtain a clear political position on Syria and thus as soon as possible.
I am shocked at how stupid the media and public are. It was fairly clear from the moment that the West stopped funding ISIS and engaged in direct military action against it that terrorism in Europe would become very likely and very serious. The laughable claim by idiot Hollande that ISIS has declared war on France is just political claptrap: France and others declared war on ISIS some time ago. The obnly difference is that Europe and the USA are not prepared to expend political and financial capital on fighting the war with ISIS properly, and in effect invited these terrorist attacks.
Moreover, as ISIS is still being funded by Saudi Arabia and others (including Turkey, it seems) it is about time that Europe and the USA engaged their brains instead of their wallets. This is the same fuck-up as with the eurozone: stupid politicians not wanting to solve problems but trying to give the impression that they are doing so. It will have the same sort of outcome — that is, serious damage to the lives of many ordinary people. It is about time that journalists in the West woke up to the extradordinary degree of cynical indifference posed by our politicians — and started to complain angrily on our behalf. Instead, we get this nonsense about how bad ISIS is (as if we didn’t alreaady know) and ideas of stopping Syrians from seeking asylum. of course, this is what most right wing governments would like — an excuse to close all the borders and refuse asylum.
you expect much too much from the media.
It’s not only the media, it’s also their true believers. The last months the Europeans were told that Greece is not registering any refugees and now they get fingerprinted and registered terrorists for breakfast, let’s see what Santa will bring.
It’s their double-standards that’s crazy: Bombing people or armies that don’t have anything to shoot back is war-crime, it was in Guernika and Picasso painted it, but already in the civil war it was “legal” to bomb partisans with napalm, followed by Vietnam that had also not any air-force to defend themselves with the result of 2 million people dead while the US-cowards lost only 50.000. Now it will end up for them to build up special walls around Islamic State or nuke’em just because they’ll loose too many votes if 50 braves get killed.