Saturday, August 22, 2015

Three Americans subdue gunman on high speed train in France

Nadine Achoui-Lesage and Stephanie Siek report for the Associated Press,
One serves in the Air Force, another recently served in Afghanistan in the National Guard, another is studying physical therapy in California - and all three Americans are being hailed as heroes for disarming a gunman on a high-speed train who may have been known to intelligence services in three countries.

...Air Force serviceman Spencer Stone remained hospitalized Saturday after being stabbed in the attack Friday night as the train from Amsterdam to Paris traveled through Belgium, though the Pentagon said the injury was not life-threatening.

...Stone, of Carmichael, California, was traveling with childhood friends Anthony Sadler, a senior at Sacramento State University, and Alek Skarlatos, a National Guardsman from Roseburg, Oregon, when they heard a gunshot and breaking glass. Sadler told The Associated Press that they saw a train employee sprint down the aisle followed by a gunman with an automatic rifle.

"As he was cocking it to shoot it, Alek just yells, `Spencer, go!' And Spencer runs down the aisle," Sadler said. "Spencer makes first contact, he tackles the guy, Alek wrestles the gun away from him, and the gunman pulls out a boxcutter and slices Spencer a few times. And the three of us beat him until he was unconscious."

Cazeneuve, speaking to reporters in Paris on Saturday, said the suspect may be a 26-year-old Moroccan flagged by Spanish authorities last year for links to Islamic radical movements, but the identity has not been 100 percent confirmed.

An Interior Ministry official said the suspect, if his identity is fully established as the Moroccan, had lived in the southern Spanish city of Algeciras, frequenting a mosque under surveillance there.
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