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It looks like a few organized attacks have been happening in the past few hours in France. I send my condolences, but as of right now it looks like it's calming down.

Nous sommes tous Français.

Sadly, this kind of stuff happens often. I'm glad it's calming down.

Whoa, doesn't Star King live somewhere in Paris? He's OK, right?

I just remembered that, I get worried about stuff like that.

He lives in Bordeaux so he should be fine, but it's always safe to check if he's okay, as well as any of his family members.

The event itself was an Eagles of Death Metal rock concert. That is morbidly ironic...even the band has said they're scattered still trying to gather the group up after the attack.

According to what I've read and watched on the news, the assailants also wore suicide jackets that would be set to blow at the wearer's command. Seven went off, one got shot down by authorities as he escaped, and as soon as he hit the ground dead, it too exploded. These people weren't going to leave a testimony willingly, and intended to die if all else failed.

This has also congressed a large number of "concealed firearms" discussions locally where I am, and that in itself would be a terrible idea, given it's a large event. Not only would you have crowds of crowds of people who could easily slip it out and fire a round with your gun, but look at the 8th terrorist and how that ended. You shoot, you kill more than the criminal.

Quite truthfully, we won't know much more until later. Things are turning to ♥♥♥♥ real fast.

EDIT: I was wrong on the bomb situation.

The four who attacked the Bataclan theatre wore black clothing and used AK-47 assault rifles. Three of those attackers killed themselves with their explosive belts during the police raid on the theatre, while the fourth was killed by police gunfire just before his belt detonated. Three other attackers detonated their belts in the suicide bombings near the Stade de France, while the eight attacker detonated his belt on the Boulevard Voltaire near the Bataclan theatre.

Without a doubt, this was organized. The question is, who?

I feel like I should say something here.

First off, as many have pointed out here already, I actually live in Bordeaux, over 500 kilometers away from Paris, and none of my close relatives even live close to the capital. However I know that one of my closest friends has family living in Paris, and I hope to quickly get in touch with him to make sure everything is okay. So for that, I am fine.

However it has still been an extremely tough day for everyone in France. No one was expecting such a violent act. We are talking about (as of right now) 129 victims, and over 350 injuries (with over 80 of them being between life and death). Thankfully, the bombers who tried to bomb the Stade de France (France's biggest stadium, fyi) were stopped, mostly due to the President being inside at the time of the attack: The stadium was full, had they succeeded, they would have killed a lot more. They shot on people at a concert, just trying to have a good time. They shot people inside apparently random restaurants and bars. The eight attackers were very organized and were only trying to kill as many civilians as they could, even if they had to die, and that is just terrifying.

They showed footage of the attacks on TV. Like, on repeat since this morning. All I have heard for the entirety of today are screams, panic and gunshots. I've heard that the concert room was full of dead bodies. Blood on the streets. Some guy described the way he had to play dead on a pile of corpses, he was wounded, and the only thing he could do is wait and hope to stay alive. I can not, and hopefully never will, understand what these people lived or felt during this horrifying night, but I am definitely with the victims and/or friends/family of the victims right now, as if France as a whole.

And this is heart-warming. The way France gathers to show support to all the people who suffered during the attacks. Between images of the attacks on the TV, they showed pictures of people queuing up to donate blood. People gathering around the targeted bars and restaurants, people helping the best way they could. In the face of terror, the entire country stands strong. These events are not reaassuring, but we can not show fear, because that's what they want.

By the way, ISIS's Daesh claimed to be responsible for the attacks. Investigations are still under way, as there might be other accomplices in the case.

Well, it's good to hear that you're not in danger or anything like that.

On a side note, the day before this happened, or fairly recently this week, "Jihadi John" was taken down by a drone upon leaving the IS headquarters in Al-Raqqah. Without a doubt, I will assume that these attacks were planned in retaliation, using France as the target, Lebanon and Baghdad as fear-inducing warnings. Since England is across the sea, they had to settle with Paris instead, as the British intelligence took out Emwazi, the speaker in the beheading videos.

The real question is when the next attack will be? Refugees have entered the US. I doubt they have any weaponry on hand, as they would have been searched before boarding, but let's hope we'll be on the lookout for anything odd.

Not heightening anyone's paranoia here, just stay safe, guys. You especially, Star.

and already ISIS is succeeding because they're promoting "ooh anti-coloreds and anti-immigrants Muslim is all evil" attitude which gives ISIS more ground to say there's a war on Islam. If they've done one pertinent thing they've shown just how quick the Anglo-Saxon people are to use something as an excuse to reawaken their racism.

It's goddamn impossible to have hope to heal in the future when all I can see is how it can get worse