Another passenger, Damien, was reading a magazine when he heard what he described as a “click-click-click”. This suspect was armed with a Kalashnikov, a knife, an automatic pistol as well as cartridges.
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“As he was cocking it to shoot it, Alek just yells, ‘Spencer, go!’ And Spencer runs down the aisle”, Sadler said. “In the process Spencer gets slashed multiple times by the box cutter, and Alek takes the AK away. It doesn’t matter who they were, that’s heroic action”, said Marine Capt. Richard Ulsh, the Stuttgart, Germany-based spokesman for Marines in Europe.
The Pentagon said one of those hurt was a member of the US military but his injuries were not life-threatening.
Police union official Slimane Hamzi said the 26-year-old man had said he was of Moroccan origin.
Michel called the shooting a “terrorist attack”. One man, who was shirtless, was pointing a gun at him. They responded by stopping him from entering the main train aisle.
In addition to the marine’s gunshot wound, two passengers on the train were injured in the gunfire, CNN reported Friday.
But the anti-terrorism unit of the Paris prosecutor’s office immediately took charge of the investigation.
The French actor is Jean-Hugues Anglade, who appeared in the 1986 cult film “Betty Blue”, according to the Minister of the Interior. He said the facts were not in yet but said the passengers were “very lucky” the soldiers were aboard the train. During the scuffle, the suspect managed to fire three shots, according to reports.
“I thought there was going to be a shoot-out on the train”, she said.
French President Francois Hollande said he had talked to Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel and that the two governments were cooperating in the investigation.
François Hollande, the French president, said: “I offer my solidarity to those wounded in the attack on the Paris-Amsterdam train”.
Security was tightened on Eurostar routes out of London on Friday night. The shooting started when the train was passing through Belgium.
A Thalys train of French national railway operator, SNCF, stands at the main train station in Arras, northern France, after a gunman opened fire injuring three people, Friday, August 21, 2015.
French authorities have been on high alert since Islamic militants killed 17 people in and around Paris in January.
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On June 26, four people were arrested in connection with a terror attack earlier in the month on an Air Products & Chemicals Inc. gas plant near Lyon in southeastern France, in which one person was decapitated and two were injured.
