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The alleged attacker, named as 25-year-old Moroccan national Ayob El Khazzani, opened fire with an assault rifle on Friday evening, but was wrestled to the floor by three American passengers who have been hailed as heroes.

Passengers helped apprehend a suspect armed with an automatic firearm and a bladed weapon who injured three people on a high-speed train in northern France, authorities for the government and the railway company said Friday.

United States Air Force serviceman Spencer Stone, National Guardsman Alek Skarlatos and their friend Anthony Sadler, spoke to the press on Sunday at the US embassy in Paris.

Reports say Hollande plans to meet at the Elysee Palace on August 24 with the three men, who overpowered an attacker who was armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle, an automatic pistol, and a box cutter on the high-speed train just after it crossed from Belgium into northern France.

“It’s my previous year in college”.

But he added: “If the identity he has declared is confirmed, he is a 26-year-old man of Moroccan nationality identified by the Spanish authorities to French intelligence services in February 2014 because of his connections to the radical Islamist movement”.

Belgian and French investigators are looking into the man’s motives, although police sources told French broadcaster i-Tele that he has denied having terrorist intentions.

The suspect, believed to be a man of Moroccan origin who recently lived in Spain and Belgium, was reportedly armed with a slew of weapons: A Kalashnikov assault weapon, nine chargers, a Luger automatic pistol, a 9mm charger and a box cutter.

Stone was one of three young American friends who helped overpower a Kalashnikov-toting suspected Islamist militant on a high speed train heading for Paris from Amsterdam.