saw the people i realized what was going on. we lie under the table. you are waiting for the end. and we are trying to think about where is the bullet going to enter me. you think that you are going to die, basically. there is nothing else you think about. you hear the shots. >> we have been listening as difficult as it is to discern some of it is live simultaneous transition, very difficult thing to do with any language of the live cable coverage 24 hour news network coverage going on in france. to sum up what president hollande had to say you just heard it summarized again. they have closed the borders of

that nation. they have declared a state of emergency, all of it understandable because they have what is perhaps an ongoing and apparently coordinated terrorist attack there. you heard some discussion of did this pass the threshold of a terrorist attack. that's because early on the first reports were that there was a shootout in a restaurant in paris tonight. sadly and sadly for so many souls and so many families it appears to be much worse than that. we have apparently multiple locations. we have over 30 dead is the latest assessment by the the associated press quoting police sources in france, again, a state of emergency there. perhaps most troubling because it's an ongoing situation that perhaps can still be controlled

is this music venue where an american band is playing to a sold out crowd tonight, eagles of death metal. an ironic band title, a humorous band title. they have quite a following in the country. they were just guests of the show comedy bang bang. big following in this country. they were the headliners. sold out crowd inside. as you have been seeing reports of upwards of 100 hostages inside that venue. dan oshay is with us, former navy s.e.a.l. coordinator. a man who knows about hostage negotiation. dan, how is it complicated when the hostage takers show that they don't care if they live or

die and we have apparently had two suicide bombings already tonight in paris? >> you lay out the scenario with multiple attacks and got the entire world's attention and now the drama drag out over the next days, hours and potentially weeks. the terrorists and kidnappers hold all the cards right now. they have no regard for human life. there is not a lot of options on the table for the good guys in this situation. >> when will we know if this is a part of a main group, if this is a splinter group? what do you look for? >> well, generally, there is messaging. generally messages are put out, claims of responsibility. in this case you can count on isis or isil. this is a gamesmanship in these

terrorist organizations. this kind of media attention is the oxygen that fuels terrorism. not to blame the media but the 24-hour attention and focus on this is going to drive it. you are creating the drama that will draw out the final conclusion with a hostage attempt being made or what could be happening. they are going to do what they have done -- it will draw out over the next few days. you can expect some kind of responsibility coming very soon. >> all of this granted is such a grisly business. how do you -- i just read a report that the u.s. embassy is trying to go through and find out and account for the americans known to be in paris. what an exhaustive business that would be. do you use a passport records

for people who are there temporarily? do you have a full accounting of american ex-pats, americans living and working overseas? >> we face a situation in iraq which every time we had a potential soldier being kidnapped we had 150,000 contractors. you do an accountability. in the military you keep those records. in the u.s. embassy there is no guarantee and the tragedy about this, they pick that concert venue because of this american band. they targeted an american band knowing a lot of american ex-pats are likely in that venue. if you have loved ones in paris reach out to them, get accountability. that is certainly what they are trying to figure out in those reported 100 hostages. they will be trying to find out the nationalities. you talking about young kids

probably from across europe. you are not talking about just americans or french. you are talking about kids from all over drawn to that music industry. we are talking about national y nationalities which are tens of 20s. it is so depressing when you realize the hostage takers their goal may not be to get out of this alive. >> generally not. they have embraced the cult of martyrdom and are initiated by suicide bombers. we can draw our conclusions who this probably likely is. hope and prayers and that the unit going in and planning for that mission will be putting their lives at risk, too. odds are this is going to be worst case scenario the beginning of a blood bath. the 30 plus killed and accounted for right now that number can be much higher over the coming days and hours. pray to god that is not what

happens. >> dan oshay is not only a veteran, but a veteran of this very grisly business of hostage taking and fighting a kind of urban war in what is in the city of paris normally a beautiful urban landscape. tonight we have seen nothing but this, pictures of police, police vehicles, military, other first responders, firefighters, reports that this is still a kinetic activity. there is still gun fire going on after what we can confirm are multiple terrorist attacks, multiple locations in paris. one blast, at least one blast audible inside the national stadium while a soccer match went on between france and germany. the president of france in attendance. he was taken out of there. he has addressed his fellow

citizens on live television tonight. the president of the united states has appeared on live television tonight. all we don't have is a resolution of this in paris. we have a dramatically rising death toll that has been rising every few minutes. we want to go back to someone who was hugely helpful to us in our fact gathering tonight. that is white house correspondent for the french television network. >> all the people all over france i spoke with, at this moment there is a hostage situation which is absolutely terrible inside the patbataclan

according to people we spoke with in my station the witnesses we interviewed in paris, my editors, you have hostages inside the bataclan at this moment. you have between 60 and 80 people hostage inside this concert hall. according to some witnesses some hostages have been killed one by one. and on twitter you heard some french people saying please help us. they are killing us one by one inside the concert theater. then you have according to sources some security forces outside the bataclan who are now

firing on people. we don't know how many gun men. i have some reports telling me from my station that they heard they have five or six gun men who mentioned syria during the attack. some of them reported inside witnesses saying they saw two of three gun men. then you had the further concern with the hostage situation. you had people coming to restaurants inside paris. they came by car with no masks on their faces. they had automatic weapons, they came out from the car. they went inside the restaurants and then began to fire on people who are eating in the restaurant. in addition to that, as you mentioned, you had attacks

outside the stadium while the french president was during the most -- soccer game that france was -- according to resources two which detonated outside the stadium. >> again, it's an ongoing situation. i can report it's a very tragic situation. >> the news just continues to be awful, laura, thank you for the update. again, the horrible march of bad news continues.

if any of these reports from the music venue are true, what an awful situation there. an american band is playing there tonight, california based band, eagles of death metal, one member of which among founding members of queens of the stone age, very popular band with a big fan base here in the united states and apparently just a terrible, terrible situation of executions if these initial reports are to be believed. and stone cold shootings tonight at the restaurant in paris. two suicide bombings outside the soccer venue. calpari looking at social media and other media sources tonight. >> imagine what theench french police and officials are dealing

with as they read reports coming from inside that theater. everybody has a cell phone and access to twitter. and it's horrifying what we are seeing on social media and seeing on our screens. there is growioing to be a deci that french officials will have to make quickly about the theater. harkin back to 2008. we are hearing from people inside that theater as they text out information, as they plea for help. as we heard there from paris we are seeing on social media reports that people are being executed inside that theater, unverified reports, but we are seeing what the french authorities are seeing. we are seeing it as french police see it. and it's an incredibly difficult position for them to be in.

>> all of these are different. all of these take on different signatures. it was unique because someone had the idea to use fire as a terrorist weapon. and it kind of -- we watched it grow slowly. we watched it grow in importance and now modern city fire departments here in new york, around the world train on the potential use however perverse as fire as a terrorist attack. this is as perverse as it gets tonight, this notion of people packed in to hear music and apparently getting executed and those still alive apparently taking to social media to say won't someone please help us. >> if you're the french authorities the first thing you want to do is control the situation as best you can. talk to the gunman. try to open up a line of communication and when you are

getting that one way communication line coming out of people saying please help us, come and rescue us that is just an almost unimaginable position for first responders to be in, people who dedicate their lives to doing exactly that. >> the music venue we are told is closer to the 11th mall. these are kind of roots of demarcation and you would mention the mall in paris to indicate what neighborhood you live in. but the music venue in a neighborhood of mostly young people. we should point this out to be fair, mcdonald's has told our colleagues at cnbc an attack did not happen in one of their restaurants as had been reported tonight. and as we have seen so far and we can't repeat enough, the fog

of war rules apply in early coverage. let's hope that these horrendous numbers of dead and wounded are inflated and come down when the light of day dawns in paris and the terrorists are suppressed finally. sadly, they have only gone up as we have been watching. we have seen the real time there in paris, just after midnight now on a friday night. and the streets in the neighborhoods affected are on total lockdown. on social media the message had gone out open your doors, help people get off the streets. take them in if people are outside. remember and don't forget they had an enormous soccer crowd there tonight. all of those people had to get absorbed into the neighborhoods

and streets of paris. after they had had dual suicide vest terrorist attacks outside the soccer venue. a terrible situation. it does look like the most dire reports have come through that in three different venues -- we just got a report that the gunman at the restaurant just kind of entered stone faced with automatic weapons, walked in and started shooting, got out of cars that pulled up outside. at the stadium, at a restaurant and now the concert hall, the latter the one sadly that is still going on. one of our veteran foreign correspondents is in our london bureau. do you have anything to add especially monitoring media over there in europe? >> reporter: we have mentioned these reports of a fourth incident at a shopping mall in

central paris. those are unconfirmed reports at this point. we don't have confirmation on that as yet and haven't heard more from french media within the past several moments. we are still keeping an eye on that. the numbers, as you say, have been rising and changing by the moment. several different reports on the number of casualties at this point. reuters now is reporting that at least 40 are dead and 60 wounded citing a police source, an unnamed police source just within the past half hour or so as you heard the french president live on air telling his country men, telling his country that all borders had been closed. there is a state of emergency in paris. the paris ian mayor inside.

we have no more information on that on whether or not that is, in fact, the hostage situation at the theater or if thas rr some other security operation somewhere in the city. that's what we are hearing so far. we are keeping an eye on all of these and trying to get more information on the potential fourth attack. >> our london bureau. you have lived and worked all over the world including the worst of it in baghdad. our hostage situation guest alluded to this earlier. you have a real decision to make here. technology has advanced concerning how to take down terrorists, how to take down people who are in control of a venue, for example. there are sound machines that can send debilitating waves of sound into a venue to bring terrorists to their knees.

there are stun grenades, so-called flash bang grenades but you have to be awfully clear and sure what it is you are looking for when you get in there. >> it is also incredibly difficult when you have people willing to sacrifice their lives if a police raid starts. it's important when you mention the flash bang grenades. at some point police are going to have to and the antiterror police will have to go into that theater. at that time we will likely see the flash bangs to try to bring down the gun men. this is a really uncomfortable moment for social media because you have people putting messages out, some saying they are inside the theater and reporting that there are executions underway. and the antiterror police in france i am more than confident do not want this to be dictated

to them. they would like to have some semblance of control over the situation. social media is keeping that from happening. >> the helpful role of social media in this ghoulish awful situation would be to say the executioners are in the right rear of the building or surround the building so they can have some guidance when they go in on what we believe is inevitable mission to clear the place. >> here is the double edged sword. you don't know who you are getting information from, if it is hostage or hostage takers. that's not something you will know until it is over, unfortunately. it's just also and i think we need to make it clear, this is about controlling the message. we have not just a theater hijacked at the moment, but television news stations around the world are keyed in now on this theater and that is one of

the long-term effects that this will have. >> as they say the whole world is watching. if you are watching this from any of the world's big cities we have learned once again no one is immune from this as long as we want to retain our social freedom of movement on a friday night in a beautiful place like paris. kate snow has been on the air with us since the very start and has a guest with her in the studio. >> i'm with corey from flash point. it's an organization that monitors terrorism, that monitors what's coming out of terrorist groups online, on social media. thanks for being with us. what are you seeing? what are your colleagues seeing at this point sth. >> so far there has been no official responsibility. what appears to be is that hard lined jihaddests rejoicing this

news. they are celebrating it heavily. they established a hashtag, paris is burning. they are distributing anti-westin. of course, the story remains unfolding. >> we don't know whether they are just claiming responsibility because they want to get credit for something they had nothing to do with or whether indeed they had any organizational role. >> exactly. for them media coverage is good coverage regardless of the topic. >> my colleague richard engel is reporting from a u.s. counter terrorism source that this attack bears the hall marks not of isis but this source says of al qaeda which is a group we don't talk about very much. >> it does have some of the hall marks of some of the previous attacks that al qaeda has carried out. "charlie hebdo," al qaeda stood behind and claimed responsibility for the attack.

al qaeda's branch carried a similar attack in kenya. there has been other incidents. >> what is similar? what is it about this that is unfolding in paris that might lead someone to believe this -- >> a number is the use of automatic rifles instead of bombings. of course, the attacks have targeted soft targets when people are just having fun and their guard is down. they are at the work place. these two aspects echo some of al qaeda's previous attacks. isis has preached very low scale attacks. this seems to be a little bit bigger. it seems to be a pretty large scale attack for me. i think this is one of the worse that paris has witnessed. >> i think it is the worse. >> the attacks as we hear that hostages remain at the music

venue or theater. >> in terms of isis it strikes me that we were sitting here just three hours ago talking about jihad john, talking about the american effort just this morning and overnight with an air strike to take out one of isis's most popular figures, the man that we have all seen wearing black with a hood and those terrible videos beheading people. i guess i wonder whether i assume that is just coincidence that that news comes on the same day as this one? >> i would say it is a coincidence. to touch on the jihadi john part. this is only a small tactical success in the bigger strategy to defeat isis. when it comes to lone wolf attacks these are absolutely difficult if not impossible to anticipate and foil. so no matter what kind of security measures you have in a

place it would be very, very difficult to anticipate. >> is it a lone wolf attack if we have three different venues at different sites where this violence may have occurred? >> i think the use of lone wolf -- it's. >> inspired by a group and carrying that attack -- on behalf of it. >> this could be people -- >> for whoever carried out that attack. >> worth repeating and reiterating at this point u.s. officials are telling us, in fact, andrea mitchell says the two senior officials tell her that it appears that they're

coordinated, these attacks but there has not been a claim of responsibility and you at flash point are not seeing any claim of responsibility. >> we are not seeing any claim of responsibility. i think it is too early. if a group is behind these attacks it is a bit early to claim responsibility. i believe if they want to claim responsibility they want to put in as many details as possible. the attacks, as i said, remain unfolding. there could possibly be more. many of the -- if not all the attackers are still at large. these very first hours of the attacks will be the most crucial for security forces to gather every single possible lead to trace down those individuals who are at large. >> our partner organization monitoring social media looking for any signs of claims of terrorist activity. i'll send it back over to you. >> thank you. and during your conversation we have received word of two

things, witnesses outside the music venue in the neighborhood of the music venue have heard automatic weapons fire and a series of explosions. we will assume for the sake of it that those explosions were perhaps stun grenades. >> it's hard to decipher separating truth from untruth. we know that people inside the theater. >> sending out text messages reporting that the gun men were executing hostages one by one. it is quite possible. >> one of the reasons the french

president has put much of the city on lockdown is this social media is reporting every pop, eve every -- >> a lot of it is a public service. a lot of it has been helpful to law enforcement. a lot of it can galvanize a social movement. some of it is highly unhelpful and some of it is fiction. that's what we've come to know about this still young medium. we have a reporter on french television getting ready to do a live report from the street corner. i'd love it if we could get simultaneous translation of what he is going to report. we continue to see this kind of shaky live video from the same

kind of median strip in the middle of the street. very tough to know what it is we are watching unfold. however, in the last ten minutes we have had reports of five separate explosions in or near the music venue. we have had reports of automatic weapons fire in or near the music venue. let's hope for all the souls inside that french officials have seen an opening and perhaps are going in there to take control of the situation from the terrorists. among prominent americans in paris right now al goo gore-- a gore doing broadcast. mike bloomberg was there for that earlier today. we are going to assume that all are safe and accounted for. this area of paris we are

talking about outside the music venue not necessarily known, we should point out, as a touristy area as much as all of paris is frequented by tourists, but it is mostly populated by young french people. tonight they want to see a sold out show of an american band, eagles of death metal from palm desert, california, originally. we can only hope this is getting broken up. >> we can only hope it is coming to an end. young french kids gravitate to this area on the weekends. you can imagine any city in the united states, new york, chicago, los angeles, bars surround a lot of the music venues. that certainly seems to be the case in this neighborhood. it is worth mentioning we showed our viewers earlier in our coverage a per scope that is a live signal from a cell phone.

that can also be unhelpful to police because you don't know who inside the theater is monitoring social media and who is watching what. that can work both ways, as well. as you just mentioned five explosions heard near the concert hall. we can only hope this is coming to a conclusion. >> apparently what we are witnessing tonight is a gigantic and coordinated terrorist attack on paris, france. we have not had a claim of responsibility. we have been quoting various u.s. security analysts, some who say this is all the hallmarks of al qaeda. some say it could be isis. others have already pointed out the peculiar timing of this tonight because one of the dominant stories in our news all day has been that the man known as jihadi john, the face of the

face of terror on earth with isis was killed yesterday apparently by a u.s. drone strike. >> we were on the air this afternoon before all this news broke and that was our lead story. that is what we have been talking about all day. the pentagon this afternoon hadn't completely verified that he was dead but they believe that they had taken out a man known as jihadi john with isis. the man you remember from those awful beheading videos that isis has put online on social media. with me here with flash point. we think about that news and isis and a potentially good day for the u.s. when it comes to the fight against isis. now you couple that with this tragedy. >> absolutely. if actual radical individuals inspired by ideology carried out

today's attack this is another proof that you cannot stop these attacks simply by conducting arial bombardment. we need a comprehensive policy, a grass roots campaign that will defeat this ideology over time using a counter narrative. without that these kinds of attacks will continue simply because we have a u.s.-led coalition involved in bombarding radical -- i'm not saying this is a retaliatory attack. it seems to bear hallmarks of such incident. >> stay with us and keep an eye on everything for us. i will go back to brian williams. we will go to sam champion over in paris with the weather channel again in preparation for

the global climate summit. where were you when this was happening? what is it like? >> so i was hosting with al gore the 24 hours of climate reality. it has been going on for five years this 24 hour broadcast delivered to nine nations tonight. was interviewing and with the mayor of paris hours before this happened. francois hollande was supposed to be on our set tomorrow night. we are all at the base of the arc detriumph. the show broadcasting 24 hours throughout this time period supposedly is on lockdown right now. i can tell you we raced to get to the cameras here. there is an eerie, eerie quiet in paris tonight. anyone that we tried, a taxi, all taxis had red lights on.

everyone had been put on lockdown and told to immediately clear the streets. so there was no movement, not a lot of movement except for people rushing to get home of the few that were out. anyone looking out of a window or door way had this absolutely just horrified very kind of pale pasty face. saw several people looking at us as we were making the approach to buildings. people are very, very weary here. there is a lot of strong concern. so at the time that it happened we were at the base of the eiffel tower. we had set up a set there to go live for 24 hours. so we made our move over here to these cameras so we could talk to you tonight. >> thank you for doing that. i know exactly where you are and usually right where you are life is just bustling on a friday night. it's heavy traffic, crowded with

people, pedestrians in one of the great and beautiful cities at night. >> absolutely. >> and it must be eerie now at this hour. >>. >> it went like that. the news spread very, very quickly. again, social media, everything was going off. even if you weren't plaplugged in watching television you were aware something was happening. people talking rapidly and quickly and then the streets cleared. you are absolutely right. what would be a normal very, very busy night in all the areas that we have been tonight, very wild around the music venue and the restaurants that was involved would have been wild as well tonight just a normal night in paris. it is very quiet. the only movement our way over here there would be bursts and flurries of the law enforcement, ambulances moving very, very quickly. but that was it. that is the only traffic on the

streets. >> while you are talking we have these kind of interstitial unreferenced pictures from live french television not knowing what neighborhood we are looking at or what situation we are seeing. we just watched a line of french police motorcycles come in from an unknown place and kind of gather. we have assumed this is the stand off at the music venue where this awful situation is taking place, an american band and a lot of hostages apparently. >> it seems to be the hot spot, what everyone is talking about right now still at this time. as you have reported you reported it was an american band that was supposed to be playing at the band tonight. we know french tv reporting that people were standing outside as late as 9:00 at night lined up

to get into that venue. there was a sizable crowd inside that area and as you reported anywhere from three to five explosions in that area. so, again, an awful lot of -- the other areas don't seem to be as rushed as that right around the bataclan right now what we are being told. >> you are there as part of this climate effort with former vice president gore. what becomes of what you had hoped to be this big public campaign leading up to the climate summit? >> it's a very good question, brian. again, the former vice president was with us on the set. a lot of french dignitaries on the set with us. we have been told the set is on lockdown. i'm sure they will have to make very tough decisions now about what they will do with that area and the people who are in that

area right now. i have been advised to not give location or position on where the former vice president might be at this time. when we left him he was well. so, you know, there will have to be tough decisions. this is a major catastrophic event. i can't see it continuing. we have a lot of people there. there is a big crowd and a very large crew. we had quite a bit of security today. they re-routed the traffic end roo. we were setting up the itinerary for it originally president hollande was not going to speak and then he decided he was going to speak. many other people followed, as well. so we had to really strengthen our security. again, as i mentioned the mayor of paris was just in, as well. so security was tight around us. we had the barricades and fencing and everything around. the public was held well back from where we were shooting. the entire area is on lockdown

right now. >> sam champion. thank you very much for being available to us. we are sorry for what this means for the city of paris. we obviously if americans are caught up in this as we heard sam champion of the weather channel say he was there along with form eer vice president go an effort to bring attention and awareness to the global climate summit which up until tonight was probably considered to be the biggest event, biggest happening in paris. call your attention to the other side of the screen. these disconnected but live and urgent seeming pictures of nothing but law enforcement on the move probably trying to figure out exactly what they have going on, what the situation is, perhaps getting dead and wounded out of different venues. calperry is watching an

overwhelming flow of social media out of paris. >> we also understand that french television has taken down their live signal from outside the theater. a lot of people on social media wondering if that was at the request of authorities. we have been talking about this information that can fly around and sometimes be used to certain people's advantage, certainly authorities on the ground do not want to tip off anyone inside if that raid is going to take place. another thing we are hearing sthais that roughly 400 french soldiers arrived on the scene. they took the metro to get to the scene. much of the city is under lockdown. >> the nypd -- and this is kind of going without saying, people can guess this -- they have put additional security out on the ground here in new york. if you've visited new york in the past couple of years you've seen what they call these

hurcules teams. there will be 12 to 20 new york squad cars with emergency services vehicles for no apparent reason just blowing through a different neighborhood coming down a street or avenue. often times there is a reason for their patrols but those have been stepped up tonight just kind of random acts going on throughout new york city to keep people offbalance. of course, increased security in new york and washington. the secretary of defense has been briefed by apparently his counter part in france. i'm told that on the telephone is a reporter with bloomberg media in paris. can you hear us? >> i hear you fine. >> what can you report from

there? >> well, i am being held a few hundred meters away umt ffrom t theater. we hear special forces i can't confirm that because the police are holding us far away. there is a huge amount of emergency vehicles, a huge amount of ambulances and fire trucks piled up. so they are clearly preparing something. >> we heard reports of automatic gun fire, of five distinct explosions from in there. are you within ear shot of any of that? >> no. i'm not within ear shot. i'm not. >> and what have you witnessed just -- we are looking at these live pictures on french television, hard to know what we are seeing beyond the fact that police vehicles, police, fire, military are just whizzing by all night long. >> i have never seen such a show of force in paris before.

it's a very strange city because there are quite a number of people out on the street where i am. people trying to get back to their homes. the rest of the city is empty. i went through neighborhoods that normally would be packed with people. i went through -- they are all major night life areas in paris. it is dead. no one is out. people have gone home. you see police cars going in every direction and various main cross roads a show of force at each cross road with police or military. it's a city split in two. you have crowded scenes around where the action is. behind police lines and the rest of the city everyone has gone home. >> and, greg, tell us about the paris of post "charlie hebdo" attacks. we are talking to chris dickey

earlier who, of course, has lived there for some time. he said security became more visible, more brazen on the streets of late and we can only guess that will increase now. >> certainly will increase. there was a step up in security after "charlie hebdo." people's lives went back to normal. i wouldn't say it was forgotten about but it didn't seem to change how people lived along their lives. you still always had police outside sensitive buildings, outside synagogues. it became a fact of life. it didn't really notice it. you didn't feel you were living in a state of fear. clearly authorities knew something could happen and sadly it has. >> greg, thank you very much. joining us live on the telephone tonight. about these scenes we are watching in the side of the

screen we have seen victims from one of the attacks tonight in paris being brought through by ems personnel there equivalent in paris, brought through to ambulances. we have seen police and military go by with obviously wearing body armor but many of them hiding behind shields, several of them advancing on presumed terrorists. a report that french television has dropped their live ucoverag for the time being outside the music venue where these hostages are believed to be being held and executions were reportedly underway from inside. cal perry is with us in the studio continuing to look at social media. >> some of the postings are just horrifying. some are coming across on

facebook. people letting officials know where they are trapped. carnage, dead bodies everywhere is something somebody just posted. people writing i'm still in bataclan. first floor hurt badly. there are survivors inside. this is what the antiterror brigade in paris is dealing with. they are dealing with seeing this information and having to make a calculated decision about when to breach that theater. it is new in this day and age to have that extra element thrown into the conversation. also interesting, people landing at the airport are being held on the planes because nobody is really sure what it means when president hollande says he is closing the borders. >> that is as much a border getting there by air as getting there on land. and here again repeated scenes

of these police vans. this is local paris police, but every vehicle at their disposal is out. on the subject of how to discern what on social media is real and what could be being used against us, even the term of fast assault you have to think would a civilian know to say that? >> this is exactly what the antiterror brigade is going to be dealing with. is this information happening on a very small scale in paris? it is quite possible as we see emergency vehicles arriving it is quite possible one of the gun men could be putting out one of these messages. the flood of messages certainly that the anti-terror police are seeing has to be incredibly unnerving as they prepare to breach the hall or as we believe is happening based on what we are seeing here on facebook and

twitter that the breach is perhaps already underway. >> at the bottom of the screen the march of bad news continues. reuters news agency saying at least 40 dead, 60 saying at lea, 60 wounded. the numbers have been all over the place, but sadly mostly growing in size. the reports are that parts of paris are under lockdown, other parts of paris are a voluntary ghost town tonight. what we do know is that it was during a soccer match between france and germany, one of the first indications that a disaster was unfolding in paris. the crowd watching the game included the president of france in the stands. they were rocked by the sound and concussion of an explosion. here it is.

again, that sound on a delay. this is a clip that is on a continuous loop. it was airing on the web tonight. you see some of the players are kind of frozen in place. people didn't quite know how to react, but in the end it was confirmed that was indeed an explosion, one of two suicide bombers apparently outside the national stadium in paris. president hollande was quickly removed and was taken to where he chaired a cabinet meeting tonight. president hollande has addressed the french people. president obama has addressed the american people, and as far as we can tell, we still have a kinetic situation still under way. i've just been handed another note. bfm television in france -- and we've been taking in a lot of their live pictures -- they are

reporting there were seven separate different attacks in paris tonight. they are citing an official source. we cannot confirm, though. we should past along bfm-tv, you are looking at their live pictures right now. they are reporting seven different attacks tonight in paris. whatever the eventual number, the three we've got reporting, the seven there reporting, this is an enormous coordinated terror attack in paris tonight. laura haim with canal-plus has been so helpful. she's the white house correspondent operating in this country for the french cable network. she has been talking to friends, contacts in france, getting information from her own network. she is with us once again.

laura, the details from when we last spoke with grisly, to say the least. what more can you tell us? >> i can tell you according to my agent in, the french television have been asked to cut off our, and believed that the french police are attacking the bataclan. i can confirm there were seven attacks. three were outside the stadium of france, which is the biggest stadium for soccer. it was a big night for a soccer game and soccer fans in paris. the french president was inside and there were three suicide attacks outside the stadium between 9:30 and 10:00. in the meantime there were four attacks in paris, in the center of paris, in the same area. it was between two and six men,

according to our sources, that began to go into a restaurant and began quietly, with no mask on their face, to open fire on the crowd eating in the restaurant. as you can imagine, it was friday night in paris, a lot of people were inside the restaurant. according to our sources, the same people went to the bataclan, which is a very pop ullr musical in paris. the bataclan is 300 meters away from "charlie hebdo." it's also a huge symbol for the people who committed those terrible attacks. inside the bataclan, according to one of mice colleagues who was there who escaped, people began to be shot one by one. some people, 15 to 20 people escaped, complete shock at this moment. the others we don't know what happened, and at the beginning

of the report there were policemen, who were launching an attack at this moment against the people who were killing hostages inside the bataclan. >> you are saying in part that some of the same attackers who get out of a car, unconcerned about their own identity, not wearing masks, but carrying automatic weapons, walk up, attack a restaurant, and later were part of the attack on the bataclan? >> that's exactly what we thought happened. we had a witness who saw the attack in the restaurant in paris, and she described how horrible it has been. two men arrived in a car, in a regular car, then without their faces hidden, with automatic weapons, they went straight to the restaurant. they came close to a man who was eating outside the restaurant.

they killed him in cold blood. then they went inside the restaurant, they opened fire. it was very quick. it was extremely violent. it was like a war zone, according to this witness who was witnessing that from a window, was in complete shock. after the two men left the restaurant and, according to my editors who double checked and according to some police officials, those two men went after to the bataclan where there there were also other men trying to kill people inside the music hall. according to police people there were between four to seven gunmen inside the music hall. again the situation is extremely confusing. it's extremely violent. that attack has been launched. we have to wait to know the ultimate details, but i can tell you that it was done in a very

professional way. these people knew perfectly what they were doing. >> laura, we're so sorry for this loss your country has suffered tonight. i have to ask a question which will call for a judgment on your part. perhaps paris? why do you think this was chosen for this horrible coordinated attack? >> it was coming, according to all our sources, the french people, especially the french journalists, following what's happening all over the world, were waiting for an attack to come. we had information that people during christmastime wanted to replicate what happened in mumbai a few years ago with an attack inside a hotel, outside a musical, waiting for the cameras to be there, waiting to kill people live on tv. that's exactly what happened. why it happened in france,

because maybe france is the symbol of a lot of things terrorists don't like. france is a symbol of freedom. we also have a lot of foreign fighters who went to syria, to afghanistan, who are coming back to france, to western countries. this is a major issue for the french. we did not expect this tragedy and this coordinated attack tonight in paris. >> i must say, at minimum, the anti-terrorism forces in france i properly regarded as being among the very best in the world. >> they are, and they're well trained. again, we had multital sources telling us it's coming. when i spoke to you a few moments ago about the mumbai attack, that's what we were expecting. some people told any really reliable sources told me, laura, it would be the gallery

lafayette, or a hotel, but something is definitely going to come because of the position of france against isis, because of what's happening in syria, because of this foreign fighters, against, going to this part of the world, and it's really easy for them to go there, and then to come back. we have and we spoke about that on msnbc during the "charlie hebdo" attack, the radicalization of a young french muslim population that wants to do jihad, they're born in france, they leave france, they train in afghanistan, they train in syria, and then easily they come back and again tonight we have the demonstrations that it was very well prepared orchestrated, and it's a horrible word, but i'm saying it's a sophisticated attack against france. >> it is horrible hearing you say it. laura haim, we grieve for your loss in france, of course, as we

grieve for many american losses of life tonight. thank you so much for sharing your reporting. we are now joined by evan coleman, a veteran global expert on terrorist groups. we've been speaking way too frequently recently, with the attack in brueirut and about th. >> we already have isis members suspected to be inside syria who have gone on twitter and crowing about how well coordinated and planned this attack was, but we don't know whether or not they're simply saying this in terms of grotesque simply or something we're going to find out about. i don't think it's any surprise that isis is a major culprit. we still don't know, if you look back at the