A suspected jihadist gunman overpowered by passengers on a packed Amsterdam-Paris train had visited Syria and was known to intelligence services in several European countries, officials said Saturday.
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The alleged attacker, named as 25-year-old Moroccan national Ayob El Khazzani, opened fire with a Kalashnikov assault rifle on Friday evening, but was wrestled to the floor by three American passengers, aided by a British man.
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told reporters that Spanish authorities advised French intelligence about the suspect in February 2014 “because of his connections to the radical Islamist movement”.
They then saw the gunman entering their train vehicle.
The official also said that the French spotted El-Khazzani in Berlin on May 10, headed to Turkey, and informed their Spanish colleagues.
There were discrepancies between French and Spanish accounts of the gunman’s travels. “It’s my previous year in college”.
In Washington, a White House official confirmed that U.S. service members were among those who overpowered the attacker. On May 21, the Spaniards responded saying that he no longer lived in Spain but in Belgium, according to the French official. The official was not authorized to speak publicly about a case in progress and asked not to be identified by name. He said he was first stunned and then relieved his 23-year-old son was not hurt or killed.
We begin with that heroic moment on a high speed train, two American servicemen and their friend on vacation in France praised for stopping what could have been a mass killing.
It was chaos caught on camera when a suspect terrorist was taken down by three American’s, including two American military members, on the train bound for Paris.
Mr Norman, who lives in France, was facing towards the back of the train when he heard “glass breaking and then saw somebody running down the aisle to the front of the train”.
“We ended up tying him up and during the process the guy pulled out a cutter and started cutting Spencer, behind the neck, and he almost cut his thumb off. But Spencer held him and we eventually got him under control and the terrorist went unconscious I think”. “And he jumped up, and I followed behind him by about three seconds”. He was just telling us to give back his gun. Authorities said that in addition to the guns, he had nine loaded magazines for the Kalashnikov.
Despite bleeding heavily, Stone went to the aid of the gunshot victim, Sadler said.
“What happened and what we did, it just feels unreal”, Skarlatos said in the Skype interview.
The three were met off the train, which was travelling through Belgium at the time of the attack, along with around 500 other passengers at the next station in Arras by French authorities.
“My thought was, ‘OK, I’m probably going to die anyway, so let’s go.’ I’d rather die being active, trying to get him down, than simply sit in the corner and be shot”. “Yes, we saw ourselves dying because we were prisoners in this train and it was impossible to escape the nightmare”.
The train, which was in Belgium, was rerouted to the nearest station in Arras, northern France, where the suspect was arrested. “This is what they do”, said Heidi Hansen, Skarlatos’ mother. The three friends had been traveling together in Europe.
President Barack Obama called two U.S. servicemen and their civilian friend on Saturday to congratulate them for overpowering a gun-wielding suspected Islamic militant on a train in France.
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His French counterpart, Francois Hollande, saluted the Americans’ bravery and planned to host a meeting with them Monday that will include top government ministers.
