Paris train attack gunman subdued by Briton

Authorities in Spain said he had lived in the country until past year and had a police record for drug-dealing.

The alleged attacker, named as 25-year-old Moroccan national Ayoub El Khazzani, on Friday evening boarded a high-speed train in Brussels bound for Paris armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle, Luger automatic pistol, nine cartridge clips and a box-cutter.

Three American friends, two of them U.S. servicemen, tackled him, and with the help of a British businessman tied him up.

US President Barack Obama said: “

While the investigation into the attack is in its early stages, it is clear that their heroic actions may have prevented a far worse tragedy.”

“He is stunned that his action is being characterised as terrorism”, she said.

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

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve did not name Khazzani, but said the man in custody had been “identified by the Spanish authorities to French intelligence services in February 2014 because of his connections to the radical Islamist movement”.

His lawyer Sophie David told French television he had denied attempted murder because the Kalashnikov had jammed and no shots were fired.

Skarlatos is a National Guard specialist who recently served in Afghanistan, and Stone is an airman first class in the Air Force. His friend Alek shook him awake with the words, “Let’s go!” “The Kalashnikov didn’t work”. Tomorrow morning the French president plans to thank those three Americans personally.

El-Khazzani was thwarted in his attack attempt by a group of men.

French authorities said the alleged gunman had lived in the southern Spanish city of Algeciras, frequenting a mosque which is under surveillance there.

German police sources told the daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that the gunman was suspected of traveling to join the Islamic State, and that he checked into a flight to Istanbul from Berlin-Tegel airport on May 10.

The AP quotes an official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the suspect had traveled to Syria and then returned to France. Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel has called the incident a “terrorist attack”.

“I looked back”, said Skarlatos, who saw the guns. “Then I heard one guy, an American, say, “Go get him” and I heard another American say, “Don’t you do that, buddy” or something like that”. “I mean I’m in awe”.

Sadler’s father, Anthony Sadler Jr., in a brief from his Rancho Cordova home, said Saturday that the three friends knew they had to act when they saw the staff running to the back of the train to try to subdue the gunman. “In the process, Spencer gets slashed multiple times by the box cutter, and Alek takes the AK away”, he continued. Grabbed the guy by the neck and everybody just started beating on the guy while Spencer held the choke hold until he went unconscious.

Mr Sadler said: “The gunman never said a word”.

Military training “mostly kicked in after the assailant was already subdued”, Mr Skarlatos said. Le Figaro reported that he had taken tranquilizers before the shooting, and one of the Americans who stopped him said the man appeared to be “in a trance”.

He said he would have used his shirt but realised that would not have worked, so he “stuck two of his fingers in the hole, found what I thought to be the artery, pushed down and the bleeding stopped”.

“If he’d had more training … we probably wouldn’t be here today”.