For the first time, the captain of the elite French special forces who stormed the Bataclan concert hall attacked by Islamic terrorists on the night of Nov. 13 has revealed dramatic details about the operation.
In an interview with NBC News' Lester Holt, the officer, who identified himself only as Jeremy, described the bloodbath they saw when they barged into the music hall. He spoke on condition that his last name not be used.
He said when they came in to go after the terrorists, they found hundreds of people on the floor, blood everywhere — and an eerie silence.
"We discover like a hell on earth," Jeremy said. "No sound. Nobody was screaming. Nobody were moving because they were afraid of the terrorists."
Moments earlier, the police unit that was the first to respond to the emergency had managed to gun down one of the terrorists. Two more remained holed up in a second-floor room surrounded by hostages.
Jeremy's unit — the BRI — was tasked to go after the remaining gunmen. The commandos went room to room looking for them, seeing and hearing many of the wounded moaning and pleading for help along the way.
But Jeremy said they had to ignore them as their primary mission was to find and neutralise the gunmen who did the mayhem.
"A lot of people... ask us to help them because they were wounded, bleeding and we had to say no — we have to find first the terrorists," he told NBC News. "It was difficult for the guys, for the men on the team."
The two remaining terrorists, who called themselves soldiers of the caliphate, were upstairs on the left side of the concert hall and down a hallway, behind a small wooden door, Jeremy said. When the commandos approached, one shouted to get back.
"I try to speak with them and he told me that he wanted to negotiate," Jeremy said. "So I said OK, give me a phone number."
But he said "it was not really a negotiation" since all the terrorists wanted was "to prepare themselves for the final assault. They don't want to negotiate anything."
Realising that they had to move in immediately to save lives, the commandos began the assault and were immediately met with a burst of gunfire from the terrorists.
The commandos carried bulletproof shields and were not hit, except for one member of the BRI who was hit on one hand, causing him to fall down the stairs.
"We cannot take care of him, we still go," Jeremy told his men.
Despite the barrage of gunfire, the commandos did not return fire because the terrorists surrounded themselves with hostages.
"It was too risky... for the hostages but we keep going," Jeremy said.
They pushed on, protected by just their shields. They eventually forced the terrorists into a "dead end" where they could not retreat any further. Realising this, one of the terrorists—who were wearing explosive vests—blew himself up. The second tried to do the same but the commandos shot him first.
With the facility cleared of terrorists, Jeremy's men then began evacuating the surviving hostages, some of whom were too scared to come out of their hiding places.
He said they managed to save a lot of lives that night with their quick action.
He said his men had been to war before since they also took part in the operation against the terrorists who attacked the Charlie Hebdo office last January.
But the Bataclan operation, he said, was more horrific. It was "so intense" — bullets, explosions — and "very tough" for him and his men to endure, Jeremy said.
