Americans who took down terrorist awarded France’s highest honor

He added that it also will be up to each service’s uniform regulations to determine whether Stone and Skarlatos can wear the Legion of Honor; generally foreign awards are not worn except “under certain circumstances when you’re in dress uniform”.

He has had a chance since Sunday to talk with the others – Anthony Sadler, Spencer Stone and Alek Skarlatos, three American friends on vacation in Europe – about those critical events.

Both Mr. Stone and Alek Skarlatos have military training.

The first man to jump Ayoub El-Khazzani, the Moroccan who fired at least three shots in the train, was Spencer Stone, an off-duty US air force serviceman. President Obama even called them “to commend and congratulate them for their courage and quick action”.

French actor Jean-Hugues Anglade injured his finger in Friday’s incident, cutting it to the bone while activating the train’s emergency alarm, he told Paris Match magazine. “You have given a message of courage, solidarity and hope”, Hollande said. He was subdued by the Americans while the train was traveling through Belgium, but was taken into custody in France after the train was rerouted to the northern French town of Arras. “You are the incarnation of that”. Anthony is headed back to the United States with his parents.

“He pretty much sums up the definition of what it means to be a warrior”, he told CNN affiliate KOVR-TV. They moved swiftly and heroically and may have saved the lives of scores of their fellow passengers.

Mr Hollande said the two Americans who first tackled the gunman were soldiers, “but on Friday you were simply passengers”.

Doctors released Stone from the Hospital over the weekend.

Khazzani is on a French list of around 5,000 people who are documented as being a potential militant Islamist threat and was classified as a high risk, according to a source close the investigation.

‘He never said a word’.

The four men were in the same train vehicle when gunfire erupted.

A short time later, a man walked into the auto with a gun. “Don’t just stand there and watch”.

Meanwhile, Belgian police carried out searches at two properties in Brussels over suspicions that the gunman might have lived there, prosecutors said.

Sunday, in Stone’s first account of the events that almost severed his thumb and left him with an eye injury, he gave a matter-of-fact description of the struggle.

“He seemed like he was ready to fight to the end”, Stone said. “So were we”.

The next step will be determining where his weapons came from, how he financed them and whether he had any accomplices, Molins said.

The problem is that train stations – 3,000 of them in France alone – are open spaces, largely uncontrolled, where nonpassengers can mingle freely with those getting on board. It was Stone’s “second instinct” to do what he did, but Murphy told the newspaper he was still shocked by what happened. “Alek just hit me on the shoulder and said “let’s go” and ran down, tackled him”. “I just said “thank God” and held that position until the paramedics got there”.