The Band In Paris Concert Hall Massacre Spared By Gunmen Shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’
The American rock band in the Paris concert hall where a massacre took place Friday, November 13, 2015, barely escaped when masked gunmen strafed a capacity crowd of about 1,500, then took some 100 hostages and killed at least 128 people. The Eagles of Death Metal members featured at the Bataclan concert hall, managed to slip out, joining other survivors of the six coordinated attacks around Paris, including two suicide bombings outside the Stade de France, where President François Hollande was watching a France-Germany soccer game.
The Islamic State (ISIS) band of jihadists claimed responsibility on Saturday, November 14, for the attacks in Paris, through an online statement in Arabic and French. The statement took exception to France’s involvement in air attacks on ISIS-controlled areas of Syria and Iraq, and belittled France’s air power as “of no use to them in the streets and rotten alleys of Paris.”
According to the New York Post, concert hostages told France Info radio that the young male attackers who were toting AK-47 assault rifles, shouted “Allahu Akbar” as they fired at the audience randomly, and then finished off the fallen wounded in the Paris massacre.
CBC News reported that aside from the rock concert at the Bataclan, the following places were also hit in Paris: the Stade de France in Saint-Denis north of Paris, where four people (including three attackers), reportedly died in two suicide attacks and an explosion; La Belle Equipe bar, 92 rue de Charonne Blvd. in the 11th arrondissement, where 18 people were killed; Le Carillon restaurant, 18 Alibert St., and Le Petit Cambodge, 20 Alibert St., in the tenth arrondissement, with a total of 14 deaths reported; Voltaire Blvd., with one lone casualty; and De la Fontaine au Roi St., where five people were killed.
After the bloodbath, investigators reported seven jihadists killed in the coordinated assaults they carried out in three separate teams.
Citing it as the deadliest violence in France since World War II, SITE Intelligence Group, a U.S. organization that monitors extremist-band websites, noted online jihadist sites celebrating the massacres in Paris.
According to Fox News, Michael Dorio, the brother of band drummer Julian Dorio, spoke of his brother’s hairy experience in Paris.
“He said they were playing, about six songs into the show, and they heard, before they saw anything, they heard automatic machine gunfire. And it was so loud, it was louder than the band, and they all hit the stage floor. And as they got up to try to evacuate they saw men with machine guns just shooting anything and everything in the venue.”
Eyewitness Dorio pegged the capacity crowd at about 1,500 people, seated or standing. In Dorio’s account, lead singer Jesse Hughes, and some of the crew, flew out a door back of the stage that led to a street during the killings.
The Eagles of Death Metal band was formed by musicians Jesse Hughes and Josh Homme who are its two permanent members. The rest of E.O.D.M. performing in Paris, is a revolving lineup. Fortunately for Homme, he was not at the Bataclan concert, having passed on the band’s European tour.
According to CNBC, Hollande and the German foreign minister were watching a friendly soccer match at the national stadium when the band of marauders dispersed to separate targets in Paris. It was the worst such attack in Europe since the Madrid train bombings of 2004, in which 191 died.
“Faced with war, the country must take appropriate action. France will be merciless towards these barbarians from Daesh.”
The assaults occurred despite France’s heightened vigilance against terrorist attacks. As a founding member of the U.S.-led coalition waging air strikes against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, France was a likely target for the ISIS band that executed innocent civilians in Paris.
[Photo by Getty Images]
