At Least 120 Killed as Shootings and Explosions Stir Chaotic Scenes in Paris

From Common Dreams

Gunmen and bombers attacked busy restaurants, bars and a concert hall at six locations around Paris on Friday evening

Rescue workers and victims at the site of an attack at a Paris restaurant Friday. (Photo: Thibault Camus/Associated Press) 

This is a developing story...

Tweets about Paris Shooting Hostage

Update (8:58 PM EDT): Paris in lockdown after deadly attacks 

France 24 reports:

At least 120 people are reported to have died in a wave of simultaneous attacks in the French capital on Friday evening, an official at Paris City hall said early Saturday morning.

Gunmen and bombers attacked busy restaurants, bars and a concert hall at six locations around Paris on Friday evening, killing scores of people in what a shaken President François Hollande described as an unprecedented terrorist attack.

The apparently coordinated gun and bomb assault came as the country, a founder member of the US-led coalition waging air strikes against Islamic State group fighters in Syria and Iraq, was on high alert for terrorist attacks ahead of a global climate conference due to open later this month.

Hollande, who was attending an international football match with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier when several explosions took place outside the national stadium, declared a state of emergency in the Paris region and announced the closure of France's borders to stop perpetrators escaping.

"This is a horror," the visibly shaken president said in a midnight television address to the nation before chairing an emergency cabinet meeting.

Earlier:

Reports coming out of Paris on Friday night indicate that multiple shootings and a series of explosions have left numerous people dead and others injured.

According to the BBC:

At least 18 people have been killed in several shootings in the French capital, Paris, as well as explosions at the Stade de France.

At least one man opened fire with an automatic gun at the Petit Cambodge restaurant in the 11th district.

Liberation newspaper reports four deaths. It also reports shootings near the Bataclan arts centre.

The Guardian, which is providing live updates here, subsequently added:

Police officials confirmed that there had been a shootout at a Paris restaurant in the 10th arrondissement amid busy Friday night bars and cafés. Then another shootout took place near the Bataclan concert venue in the nearby 11tharrondissment. Hostages have been taken at the Bataclan, police confirmed to AFP.

At around the same time, there was a series of explosions outside the Stade de France, north of Paris, during a France-Germany friendly football match. The French president François Hollande was at the match and was evacuated from the stadium to the French interior ministry for a crisis meeting.

A police official confirmed to Associated Press that there had been one explosion in a bar near the stadium.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License