More than 150 people were killed in Paris on Friday night after gunmen opened fire in multiple locations around the capital with Kalashnikov assault rifles and set off explosions, in the worst terrorist attack in France’s history.

President François Hollande announced a national state of emergency and closed French borders in a live TV address shortly after the attacks, adding that he would convene a Defence Council on Saturday to coordinate France’s response, reports Politico.

French television and media outlets reported that at least 100 were killed at the Bataclan concert hall. Dozens more were dead following a coordinated attack at about a half-dozen sites across the city, including near the Stade de France national stadium. 

‘It was a bloodbath,’ Julien Pearce, a reporter for France’s Europe 1 radio station who was at the concert hall, told CNN.

At least five suspected attackers were among the dead, including three who were inside the Bataclan stormed by armed police and another who launched a suicide attack near the stadium, which would be the first time that a suicide attack had taken place on French soil. A number of French media outlets reported early Saturday that as many as eight suspected assailants had been killed.

‘It’s a horror,’ Hollande said in the address on French television, calling the attacks an act of ‘terrorism.’

‘This is a terrible ordeal that, once again, assails us. … Who are these criminals? Who are these terrorists?’ he said. ‘In the face of terror France must be strong. It must be great, and the authorities of state must be firm. We will be.’

Shortly before 3 a.m. Saturday, French police said they believe all of the attackers were dead. Micheal Cadot, the head of Paris police said that authorities were searching for possible accomplices.

The attacks, unprecedented in scale and audacity, brought to life a nightmarish scenario for French authorities which have been battling homegrown Islamist extremism for years: multiple, simultaneous assaults by heavily armed gunmen and bombers.

They marked the third time that France has been hit by terrorism in 2015, including the Charlie Hebdo assault in January, a beheading and a thwarted attack in a Thalys train in August. Over the past few years hundreds of French citizens have joined Islamist groups in Syria, straining authorities’ ability to monitor all who return home — a group that security officials consider particularly dangerous given their wartime experience.

No particular group had claimed responsibility for the attacks as of 5 a.m. Paris time. But witness reports of attackers shouting ‘It’s for Syria’ brought to mind possible vengeance for French airstrikes being carried out against ISIL targets in Syria.

Despite a high terror alert level and troops deployed in sensitive sites across France, the bar terraces, soccer stadium and concert hall where attackers struck would have been lightly protected.

Three weeks before world leaders were due to convene in Paris for the COP21 climate change conference, the attack called into question any international meeting in a country that has sealed itself off to thwart attacks and catch any terrorist attempting to leave the country.

As an immediate consequence of the attacks Hollande immediately called off his trip Sunday to Turkey for a G20 summit; Paris’ Orly airport was closed as well as schools and universities; and candidates in France’s December regional election said they would suspend their campaigns.

The coordinated attacks began at 9:17 at the Stade de France, with up to three explosions, and was followed minutes later by the shootings across a popular neighbourhood of Paris that was crowded on a Friday night.

Jonas Tylewski, a German studying in France who was in the stadium, said many in the crowd thought the explosions were fireworks, but soon police cars arrived at the scene. Mobile internet connection in the stadium was very slow and stopped working completely shortly after the match, Tylewski said.

The crowd began to leave the stadium but then people ran back in panic after hearing that there were shootings outside, Tylewski said.

‘Friends of mine are still in the conflict area,’ Tylewski said, citing the 10th and 11th Arrondissements. ‘The atmosphere is way worse than after Charlie Hebdo,’

Hollande, who had been at the Stade de France for a match between France and Germany, was escorted out of the area and police set up a security cordon.

On Rue Bichat in the 10th district, at least four bodies lay motionless on the street and witnesses said they had seen two shooters or more firing with Kalashnikov rifles before taking flight, daily Liberation cited a correspondent on location as saying.

‘There were incessant shots,’ a witness who was at the first shooting location said on France24 television. ‘It sounded like firecrackers.’

After midnight Paris time, police assaulted the Bataclan concert hall in northern Paris, in the 11th district. LCI television reported that three terrorists were found dead inside, and cited a witness who called the scene ‘a carnage.’

On witness cited by BFMTV said that the gunmen inside the Bataclan had shouted ‘It’s for Syria, It’s for Syria’ while firing their weapons. One attacker shouted ‘Allahu akbar,’ God is great in Arabic, and fired into the crowd, a witness told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Pearce, the radio reporter, gave a harrowing account of the ‘10 horrific minutes’ when black-clothed gunmen wielding AK-47s entered and fired calmly and randomly at hundreds of screaming concertgoers.

‘People yelled, screamed and everybody lying on the floor, and it lasted for 10 minutes, 10 minutes, 10 horrific minutes where everybody was on the floor covering their head(s),’ Pearce said.

‘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.’

Another witness, Pierre Janaszak, a radio presenter, was sitting in the balconies with his sister and friends, when they heard shots from below about one hour into the show.

‘I clearly heard them say ‘It’s the fault of Hollande, it’s the fault of your president, he should not have intervened in Syria’. They also spoke about Iraq,’ Janaszak said.

A man who gave his name only as Jerome said he was near the stage watching the concert by the Eagles of Death Metal, an American band, when he heard shots, turned around and saw gunmen ‘by the bar.’

‘They gesticulated for everyone to get down and fired above our heads,’ he said. ‘I climbed over the barrier and onto the stage . . . I fell on a guitar and cut my face.’

The French police raised its terror alert level to ‘red alpha,’ signalling multiple attacks. It encouraged residents of Paris to stay indoors.

President Barack Obama condemned the attacks in Paris as an ‘outrageous attempt to terrorize innocent civilians’ and promised the people of France the full support of the United States.

‘This is not just an attack on Paris … but this is an attack on all of humanity and the universal values that we all share,’ Obama told reporters at the White House. ‘We stand together with them in the fight against terrorism and extremism.’

Obama promised that the US will provide the government of France whatever assistance is needed and to do whatever it takes to bring terrorists to justice.