A gunman opened fire with an automatic weapon on the high-speed train traveling from Am…
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“The situation is under control, the travelers are safe”, said a spokesperson for the train company, Thalys, in a tweet.
A US soldier has spoken of the moment he and a childhood friend prevented a gunman from opening fire on a passenger train from Amsterdam to northern France.
A shooting has occurred on a high-speed train that was traveling from Amsterdam to Paris.
Belgium, home to half a million Muslims, largely of French-speaking North African descent, among its 11 million people, has been on alert since January when Islamist gunmen killed 17 people in Paris, mostly at the “Charlie Hedbo” magazine office.
The three were met off the train, which was travelling through Belgium at the time of the attack, along with approximately 500 other passengers at the next station in Arras by French authorities.
Ten minutes later the train stopped at Arras, where police arrested the shooter, described by French investigators as a 26-year-old from Morocco or of Moroccan origin also armed with an automatic pistol and a box cutter.
He is understood to have lived in both Spain and France, and a Spanish counter-terrorism source told AFP he travelled to war-torn Syria previous year. He said Belgian authorities are assisting the investigation, which is led by France. Experts have long said the trains are a potential target for attacks. He said they were “particularly courageous and showed great bravery in very hard circumstances”, the BBC quoted him as saying, “Without their composure we could have been confronted with a bad incident”.
Once it emerged that the shooter had been subdued, he went to help.
Cazeneuve called for caution before jumping to conclusions.
Another person lay restrained on the ground, he said, referring to the shooter.
A spokesman for France’s interior ministry said the motivation for the attack is unknown.
“We heard a gunshot, and we heard glass breaking behind us, and saw a train employee sprint past us down the aisle”, Mr Sadler said. Alek got up and Spencer got up and they looked at what was happening and Alek said to Spencer “go get him”.
British passenger Chris Norman told French television that he helped tie the gunman up. The pair, who were in civilian clothes, started monitoring the gunman after passengers noticed his behavior was erratic, media reports said.
“The gunman never said a word”.
In Washington, the Pentagon could “only confirm that one U.S. military member was injured in the incident”. His injuries are not life threatening and he is being treated.
Mr Stone is with the Air Force stationed in the Azores and Mr Skarlotos, a 22-year-old National Guardsman, had returned from a deployment in Afghanistan in July, according to his stepmother Karen Skarlotos.
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She spoke with her step-son immediately after the incident.
