Alex Skarlatos says gut instinct, military training helped subdue gunman in

While passengers on Eurostar services between Paris and London must pass through airport-style security before boarding trains, passengers on services between the French capital, Brussels and Amsterdam face no such checks.

By the time the suspect was subdued, three people had non-life-threatening injuries, said Anthony Blondeau, a spokesman for Arras city in northern France, where the train pulled up after the incident.

Three Americans who helped subdue an armed gunman on a high-speed train en route from the Netherlands to France, have recounted a bit of their experiences during a news conference held at the U.S. embassy in Paris.

Without a note of bravado but a huge dose of humility, the three described Friday’s drama on an Amsterdam-to-Paris fast train.

Stone said he had just woken up from a deep sleep when he saw the shooter, identified as Ayoub El-Khazzani, brandishing an AK-47.

A senior European counterterrorism official told CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank that the suspect was linked to Belgian investigations into radical Islamist networks. Alek came up and grabbed the gun out of his hand while I put him in a choke hold. So now he’s in France, not Spain.

Khazzani was yesterday being interrogated by counter-terrorism police outside Paris who have until Tuesday to charge him.

Despite his own injuries, Stone then went to help the man who had been shot in the shoulder. “We get a lot of these names”, he said, saying that it was important to balance monitoring with privacy concerns.

His friend Alek Skarlatos, a US Army National Guard Specialist, said: “He clearly had no firearms training whatsoever”. My thought was, OK, probably I’m going to die anyway.

Stone and Skarlatos moved in to tackle the gunman and take his gun.

“He leaves here a young man on an excursion to broaden his world view and to have fun with his buddies, and he comes back France’s national hero”, Sadler said.

Solon Skarlatos said his brother made clear during their phone conversation that Stone deserves special recognition for being the first to tackle the gunman, receiving cuts to his back, face and finger during the struggle. Sadler also thanked his friends and British citizen Chris Norman for helping out on Friday. Stone, who was wounded by a knife, left the hospital Saturday, while a French-American traveler who was hit by a bullet remains hospitalized.

Spencer, an Air Force airman also from California, added, “I trust both of my friends very much”.

In February 2014, he was flagged to French authorities by Spain for having links to radical Islam, which led France to open a file on him, Cazeneuve said.

The lawyer said the Moroccan had untreated wounds on his face when he spoke to her through an interpreter.

“He says that the Kalashnikov didn’t work and he was brought under control immediately without a single shot being fired”, David said.

Europe’s major rail stations, such as Paris’ Gare du Nord and Brussels’ Gare du Midi, are patrolled by soldiers armed with rifles, but passengers can board most high-speed trains without passing through metal detectors or having their bags searched or showing their passports.

“He thought of a holdup to be able to feed himself, to have money”, she said on BFM-TV, then “shoot out a window and jump out to escape”.

The identify of El Khazzani’s was established through DNA analysis and matches the DNA records Spanish authorities had on file, according to French media.

Spanish security sources say Khazzani lived in Madrid between 2007 and 2010 before moving to the southern Spanish port of Algeciras.

It was unclear how long he was in Spain.