Shooting on Paris-bound high-speed train

“So were we”.

Mr Stone, wearing a sling on his left arm, was injured in the attack and said he will receive further medical treatment in Germany.

According to Khazzani, who does not speak French and whose comments were translated by an interpreter, he boarded the train to rob people, and had intended to break a window and jump out to escape.

Sadler sounded skeptical when asked if it might have been a robbery and not terrorism.

The gunman was carrying a Kalashnikov rifle, an automatic pistol with ammunition clips, and a box cutter knife, Mr Cazeneuve said.

“A man’s throat had been slit”, Sadler said.

Stone said he was motivated “to survive” when he rushed the gunman.

Spanish intelligence services say he went to France, from where he traveled to Syria, but the suspect has reportedly denied going to the conflict-ridden country where the Islamic State group controls swathes of territory.

And he was eventually able to “choke him unconscious” and Mr Skarlatos hit him in the head with one of the guns, before he was tied up with the help of British grandfather Chris Norman. [He] pulled out a handgun, Alek took that. The gunman sliced into him with a box cutter, nearly cutting off his thumb. A French passenger was one of the first to spot him and tried to stop the armed man but he got away and fired several times. U.S. President Barack Obama called them Saturday to commend them for their heroic actions.

Skarlatos said the first thing he heard was the gunshot from the other vehicle, which French authorities said wounded a passenger. “Our training kicked in after the struggle”.

Stone said he aided a passenger whose neck was “squirting” blood. 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 awful incident”. The attacker, reported to be a 26-year-old Moroccan national, is being questioned by French anti-terrorism police. The third young man, Anthony Sadler, 23, moved in to help subdue the assailant.

The victim is in a “serious but stable” condition and their life is not in danger. “The gunman never said a word”, said Sadler. The attacker, Sadler explained, was “skinny” and “basically came in and we saw him cocking the AK 47 [the Kalashnikov]”.

“He clearly had no firearms training whatsoever”.

“But if he got lucky… and went through all those magazines, we probably wouldn’t be here today”.

The three Americans spoke publicly for the first in Paris Sunday.

After meeting El-Khazzani, David said he appeared thin and malnourished, with “a very wild look in his eyes”. The suspect told police he isn’t a terrorist, and had planned to commit a robbery or ransom passengers on the train from Amsterdam to Paris, BFM TV said. “Don’t just stand by and watch”.

“We often use the word hero, and in this case it is appropriate”, she said as she introduced them. Most importantly, they are also heroes who stopped a terrorist attack on a train bound for Paris.