American trio recount how they stopped train attacker

Fighting a terrorist was probably the last thing student Anthony Sadler, Air Force serviceman Spencer Stone and Alek Skarlatos, a National Guardsman had on their minds as traveled through Europe. He added that he acted out of “survival – and for my friends and everybody else on the train“.

The suspect was reportedly flagged to French authorities past year as a man who had joined “the radical Islamist movement”.

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

Witnesses say that Stone quickly rushed the suspect and pushed him against the restroom. “So were we”.

The heavily-armed alleged attacker, 25-year-old Ayoub El Khazzani, is said to be “dumbfounded” by accusations he was intending to carry out a terror attack despite being known to intelligence services in several countries for extremist links. 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. He noted that El-Khazzani was armed with eight magazines of bullets.

A source close to the French probe said he “lived in Belgium, got on the train in Belgium with weapons likely acquired in Belgium and he had identity papers issued in Spain”. French and German officials say he had tried in March to reach northern Syria, an Islamic State stronghold.

When Skarlatos and his friends tackled the gunman, Norman said he helped subdue him.

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 clearly had no firearms training whatsoever”, Skarlatos said of Khazzani.

El Khazzani remains in custody at the headquarters of the French DGSI anti-terrorism police at Levallois-Perret, Paris, where he was taken on Saturday morning. Three young Americans, one of whom suffered knife wounds, were among the passengers who stopped the gunman.

Stone was treated and released for deep cuts on his hand from the attack, and all three men are being heralded as heroes. “I didn’t realize how bad they were”, Stone said. “Our training kicked in after the struggle”.

“I looked up, I saw a guy carrying an AK-47, or at least I assumed it was some kind of machine gun anyway”, he said.

Sadler said the men were only in that train auto, which was first class, because the Wi-Fi had been shaky in the vehicle they initially Saturday They had bought first-class tickets, so they made a decision to hunt down their seats. “It felt like a dream, or a movie”.

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

“At that time he was cocking the AK-47”, Sadler said today from the U.S. Embassy in Paris, “So it was either do something or die”.

“As soon as we saw him, we all ran back there”.

“We often use the word hero and in this case I know that word has never been more appropriate”, Ms Hartley said.