US Edition • Mark Moogalian tackled the gunman first
• People must act or die, say US heroes
•
•
•
•
Latest
07.05
AFP have had a chat with French psychologist and criminologist Jean-Pierre Bouchard who said such incidents as the one on Friday can cause different responses.
"Those who witness and comprehend what's happening undergo enormous stress. They feel an imminent danger of death.
"Some people are going to be shocked and won't be able to do much. Others are going to try to save their own skins by showing themselves as little as possible, and hiding. And some people are going to try to get away, but in this case it was an enclosed space," he said.
According to psychiatrist Nicole Garret-Gloannec, the two servicemen thought faster and "had all the tools to allow them to react in an appropriate way".
06.00
Summary
The mystery identity of the first heroic passenger to wrestle a weapon from the high-speed train gunman can be disclosed for the first time by The Telegraph.
Mark Moogalian, a 51-year-old professor at the Sorbonne, tackled Ayoub El-Khazzani during Friday's bloody incident aboard an Amsterdam-Paris international service. Mr Moogalian is the previously unnamed man who came to the aid of “Damien A”, 28, a French banker who confronted El-Khazzani.
The pair tackled the Kalashnikov assault rifle off El-Khazzani, who then drew a sidearm and shot Moogalian in the neck before taking back the rifle, his sister has revealed. Read here for more details.
The three Americans and one Brit who were able to tackle and tie up Ayoub El-Khazzani, the gunman, will recieve the Legion of Honour medal, France's highest civilian honour.
El-Khazzani's lawyer claims he was homeless and has suggested he was simply trying to commit a robbery. That version of events has been disputed by officials.
Meanwhile, a spotty wireless Internet connection may have played a role in preventing a horrific attack. The three American friends who tackled and disarmed the gunman said they switched carriages minutes before the attack after they were unable to connect to the Internet.
“We decided to get up because the WiFi wasn’t so good on that car,” said Anthony Sadler. “We were like, ‘We have a ticket to first class. We might as well go sit in first class.’ ”
As a result, they were in the carriage where Ayoub El-Khazzani emerged, shirtless, armed with an AK-47, a handgun and a knife.
22.36
Ayoub El-Khazzani, the alleged gunman and a Moroccan national, remains in custody in the town of Arras, France. Authorities have until Tuesday to press charges against him. Law enforcement from France, Spain and Belgium are all investigating the case.
As we mentioned previously, his lawyer says he was homeless, suffering from malnutrition, and is "dumbfounded" that his actions are being percieved as terrorism.
Alek Skarlatos, the American soldier who recently returned from Afghanistan and helped subdue El-Khazzani, disputed the claim that he was simply attempting to commit a robbery.
"It doesn't take eight magazines to rob a train," Mr Skarlatos said. "The guy had a lot of ammo. His intentions seemed pretty clear."
g
20.41
More information from AFP about the award:
The Legion d'Honneur, France's highest accolade, was created by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802 and is awarded in recognition of both civil and military achievements.
The train passengers are to be awarded the Chevalier de l'ordre national de la Legion d'Honneur, or Knight of the national Order of the Legion of Honour.
Charles Michel, the Belgian prime minister, the US ambassador to France Jane Hartley and members of France's government including Manuel Valls, the prime minister, are all expected to attend the award ceremony.
19.55
Francois Hollande will present three young Americans and a British man with the country's top Legion d'Honneur medal at a ceremony on Monday in recognition of their bravery after they overpowered a gunman on a packed Thalys train, an Elysee source said, via AFP.
A French citizen who also tackled the suspected jihadist but who wishes to remain anonymous will receive the honour at a later date, as will a Franco-American passenger who was hit by a bullet and is recovering in hospital, the source told AFP.
19.46
More about Mr Moogalian, the French hero:
He tackled the Kalashnikov assault rifle off El-Khazzani, who then drew a sidearm and shot him in the neck before taking back the rifle, his sister has revealed.
Three other US citizens including two military personnel, and Chris Norman, a British businessman then stepped in to disarm and overpower the assailant.
Mr Moogalian’s sister Julia said: “He made sure his wife was hidden behind a seat. She watched the whole thing happen.
“He did manage to get the weapon away from the gunman.
“But the gunman then pulled another gun and shot my brother.
19.17
The mystery identity of the first heroic passenger to wrestle a weapon from the high-speed train gunman can be disclosed for the first time by The Telegraph, David Barrett writes.
Mark Moogalian, a 51-year-old professor at the Sorbonne, tackled Ayoub El-Khazzani during Friday’s bloody incident aboard an Amsterdam-Paris international service.
Mr Moogalian, who lives in Paris but is originally from Midlothian, Virginia, US, is the previously unnamed man who came to the aid of “Damien A”, 28, a French banker who confronted El-Khazzani.
The academic acted instinctively to protect his partner Isabella Risacher, who was also aboard the Thalys train.
17.56
The father of the gunman who attempted to commit a massacre aboard a high-speed international train service has spoken for the first time of his shock, writes James Badcock in Algeciras and David Barrett.
Mohamed El-Khazzani, speaking exclusively to The Telegraph, said his son was a "good boy" and expressed incredulity at his actions.
"I have no idea what he was thinking and I have not spoken to him for over a year,” said Mr El-Khazzani.
"He was a good boy, very hardworking."
Between sobs, the gunman’s father said his son “never talked politics; just football and fishing”.
Since returning to be with his parents in 2012 after a troubled spell in Madrid, his son had given up smoking hashish and seemed very calm, said the father of four, who recycles materials for a living in one of Algeciras’s poorest areas, El Saladillo.
Mr El-Khazzani, born in Tétouan, northern Morocco, in 1950, managed to legalise his status in Spain a decade ago and brought his entire family over in 2007, first settling in Madrid before moving to Algeciras.
17.25
More from the press conference. Mr Stone has said: "It seemed like the terrorist was ready to fight until the end but so were we."
A journalist asks, did the gunman seem to be trained?
Mr Skarlatos said he believes the gunman lacked training: "He had no firearms training. He would have been able to operate through all of those magazines."
Mr Stone says again that it feels unreal and says he wants to thank the French people and the medical team - the nurses, paramedics.
Mr Sandler repeats the gratitude and added he feels like he's waiting to be wake up.
The conference has now ended.
17.20
In case you missed earlier, The Telegraph's Colin Freeman has more from earlier during the press conference.
Speaking about the attack at the conference, Mr Stone said: "It seemed he [gunman] was pulling weapons from left and right."
Mr Skarlatos was hitting him with the pistol and rifle, he said, adding that his reaction "was about survival".
Mr Skarlatos: "The guy had a lot of ammo - his intentions seemed pretty clear. It still does not seem real."
Mr Stone: "Other than my finger I didn't really feel any of my injuries.
Talking about neck-injured Frenchman: "I stuck two of my fingers in the whole and found what I thought to be the artery and pressed it until the bleeding stopped, and until the paramilitaries arrived."
17.17
Mr Sadler said: "I was the third one to get up and I want the lesson to be learnt that in times of crisis, to do something, hiding or sitting back is not going to help you.
"Don't just stand by and watch."
We just acted, there wasn't much thinking, the men said.
17.15
Mr Skarlatos: "The gunshot was probably the first noise I heard then breaking glass. The gunman was behind me so I had no idea where the gun was aiming at or what he intended to do."
"I thought we would be let go after questioning," he added as he said he didn't expect this much attention.
Anthony Sadler said: "Initially after it happened, I realised the magnitude, I didn't realise all this would happen. I just knew it would be bigger than just the initial investigation but I had no idea it would be like this."
Mr Stone: "The French guy deserves a lot of credit."
17.12
Spencer Stone said: "I woke up from a deep sleep and I turned around and he had an AK-47. We tackled him and hit the ground. I put him in a chokehold.
"He took out a box cutter - all three of us started punching him and grabbed him again and put him unconscious whole Alek was hitting him."
"It feels very unreal, feels like a dream so I don't know what to say."
Alek Skarlatos: "Guy had a lot of ammo. Like Spencer said, it hasn't sunk in, it feels very unreal."
17.08
Jane Hartley, US ambassador to France, has thanked the heroes for their actions earlier during a press conference with the American heroes.
16.25
France’s mystery hero shuns limelight
The bravery and quick thinking of the American heroes who forestalled what could have been a bloodbath on the Amsterdam-Paris train is rightly being highlighted, writes David Chazan in Paris.
But the French are also proud of the courage and initiative displayed by a home-grown hero, a 28-year-old banker who was the first to tackle the gunman, Bernard Cazeneuve, the French interior minister, said.
Identified only as Damien A., 28, he wishes to remain anonymous.
Minutes before the attempted attack, he got up to go to the toilet and came face-to-face with a thin, bare-chested man, armed with a Kalashnikov and wearing a cartridge belt who was coming out.
The sight of Ayoub El-Khazzani shocked and terrified the banker, who has no military background. The temptation to flee must have been enormous, but Damien A immediately threw himself at the gunman and tried to wrestle the gun from his grasp.
At first, train staff and passengers mistook the struggle for a brawl between two young men.
As they grappled, Damien lost his balance and fell to the ground. But a man in his 50s, described as an American academic who lives in the Paris area, came to his aid and managed to grab the Kalashnikov.
The man, whose identity also remains a mystery, started down the corridor with the gun, but Khazzani took out a Luger semi-automatic pistol and shot him.
Patrick Goldstein, one of the doctors who treated him, said he was “lucid” and told him what happened after he was admitted.
“As a doctor and as a citizen, I’m proud of what he did,” Dr Goldstein said.
The bullet went through the man’s lung and exited near his collarbone, on the left side. Around that time, several witnesses said a window was shattered, now thought to have been caused by the same bullet.
“He is doing well,” Dr Goldstein said. “His life is not in danger but he will stay in hospital for a few more days.”
16.18
The three American heroes are now at the US Embassy in Paris are expected to speak in the next few minutes.
15.45
Khazzani first settled in Spain in 2007, where he was employed as a housepainter. However, he was arrested in 2009 and 2010 over drugs offences, writes David Chazan and James Badcock.
Sophie David, a lawyer who assisted him after his arrest in the northern French city of Arras on Friday following the attempted attack, told local newspapers that he had twice been convicted for drug dealing in 2013.
By the time he moved in 2013 to the southern city of Algeciras, where he frequented a radical mosque and associated with people known to have links with extremist groups, Spanish intelligence had identified him as a security threat.
The Spanish flagged him up to French intelligence in February 2014 and warned that they believed he was planning to move to the Paris area to join a friend.
It was then he was listed as a security threat in France, which meant that if police checked his identity or he produced his passport to enter or leave the Schengen area, it would automatically be flagged up to other European countries.
The alarm was sounded when he went through passport control in Berlin on May 10 this year to board a Germanwings flight to Istanbul. He is then believed to have crossed from Turkey into Syria, where he could have been trained by Isil or other terrorist groups.
After his arrival in Istanbul, French intelligence lost track of his movements, but informed their Spanish counterparts on May 11 that he had travelled to Turkey, according to French sources.
They responded on May 21, saying he had left their territory and had been living in Belgium for several months.
A French police source told the Journal du Dimanche newspaper that Spanish intelligence had been slow to update the French and other European authorities: "It's astonishing that the Spanish did not indicate earlier that Khazzani had left their territory."
French security sources claimed he had never entered France. However, he may have done so without their knowledge, a police source admitted to the Telegraph.
14.34
European intelligence services face questions over their apparent failure to coordinate their action and stop the gunman although he had been on their radar for several years as a serious threat, write David Chazan in Paris and James Badcock in Algeciras.
He was placed on the Schengen register, in which information about "persons of interest" is shared by 27 European countries, as early as 2012, according to the Spanish newspaper El Pais.
There are discrepancies between French and Spanish accounts of his movements in the years leading up to the attempted attack, as leaked to the media by intelligence sources in the two countries. French and Spanish security services are reportedly engaged in a row over who may be to blame.
In France, Ayoub el-Khazzani was classified as a grade 3 threat, meaning he was considered to pose a serious risk. Those identified as a threat to national security are graded on a scale from 1, the highest risk, to 16, the lowest.
Police and intelligence services would have routinely been notified whenever the 25-year-old Moroccan passed through an international airport, or went through passport control. However, under the Schengen agreement, travellers are not required to show their passports when they cross borders between 26 European countries. France, Spain, Belgium and Spain -- countries he is known to travelled to in recent years -- are all in the Schengen area. Britain is not.
Additional footage from the train which shows the attacker lying on the floor after being overthrown has been released.
14.11
Sophie David, a lawyer assigned to Khazzani's case at the beginning of his detention in Arras but who is no longer representing him, said he denies firing a single shot, AFP reports.
"He is dumbfounded that his act is being linked to terrorism," she told BFM-TV, adding the suspect who is believed to have lived in Belgium describes himself as a homeless man.
"He says that by chance he found a suitcase with a weapon, with a telephone, hidden away.
"He said he found it in the park which is just next to the Midi Station in Brussels, where he often sleeps with other homeless people."
13.37
Ayoub El-Khazzani had been on French and Spanish intelligence radars since 2013.
French intelligence classed him as a grade 3 security threat. Their classification goes from 16 (least dangerous) to 1 (most dangerous) - so 3 means he was considered a serious threat.
13.27
In celebrity news, Lewis Hamilton, the Formula One driver, has been ordered to take down an Instagram video post of him shooting an assault rifle.
He angered fans by posting it just hours after the attack on the train in France.
The Daily Mail reported that Hamilton denied putting up the picture, saying his friend handles his social media on weekends. His Mercedes team boss Niki Lauda ordered him to take it down.
12.34
French newspaper le Journal du Dimanche reports that on a Facebook post from January 2015, shortly after the attack on the satirical journal Charlie Hebdo, Ayoub El-Khazzani attacked France and its colonial past.
He is believed to have written a comment on a photo of the Algerian war, denouncing "a terrorist civilisation and a criminal state", and accused "Jews and Christians [for being] at the origin of terrorism".
12.21
Marine Le Pen, an MEP and head of France's far-right Front National, has called for the expulsion of foreigners who have terrorist links.
Referring to France's system of recording those with extremist links on a database and putting them under a form of a surveillance, she pointed to "great weaknesses", saying that they should be "immediately expelled from French territory" and "banned".
She said today: "Why is France accepting on its territory a foreigner she knows, however, that it is potentially dangerous and linked to a murderous ideology?"
11.37
A 28-year-old French-American banker was injured in the attack on Friday.
Yesterday, Interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve said that it was in fact a French person who intervened first before the Americans piled in.
His identity is not yet known, but he suffered a bullet wound to the chest and was helicoptered to hospital in Lille.
He remains hospitalized in intensive care today in "serious but stable" condition, and his life is not danger, according to Patrick Goldstein, head of the emergency service at CHRU Lille hospital.
"There is strictly no change from yesterday. His condition is perfectly stable and there's no surgical procedure planned," Goldstein said on French television BFM, adding that the victim "is an exceptional person with great calm."
11.30
Le Figaro reports that the gunman Ayoub El-Khazzani said he had taken tranquilisers in order to be able to commit the theft that he claims he was carrying out on the train.
The French newspaper also notes that this follows what one of the Americans said when they described him like he was "in a trance".
11.05
Le Parisien also gives an account of his questioning so far, which is taking place with investigators of counter-terror command (Sdat) in Levallois-Perret near Paris.
The French newspaper reports that he appeared "distraught" during his first police interview on Friday at 10.30pm.
He initially cooperated with the investigators before stonewalling them. He has been speaking only Arabic and has needed a translator but can apparently understand a few words He is said to be "greatly surprised" by how hisactions have been interpreted.
His lawyer told the paper:
"He does not understand why this story has taken on such importance. He says he just wanted to extort money from Thalys passengers, nothing else. He denies that there was any terrorist dimension to his plot. That almost made him laugh.
"From the outset he has refused to disclose his identity and that of his parents. He claims he found the Kalashnikov, the Luger handgun and a mobile phone abandoned in a bag at the station in Brussels where he had been sleeping. He's been homeless since his ID papers were stolen in Brussels.
"He previously worked as a house painter in Spain and was convicted of two drug trafficking offences in 2013.
"Over the past six months he has travelled to Spain, Andorra, Belgium, Austria Belgium, Germany and France. However he denies he ever went to Turkey or Syria."
Spanish newspaper El Pais reports that Ayoub El-Khazzani had been arrested three times for drug trafficking: twice in Madrid in 2009 and again in Ceuta in 2012.
10.46
The Americans who first confronted the gunman are to meet on Monday with French President Francois Hollande.
10.38
The New York Times reports that the three Americans on the train were childhood friends, who met in middle school in California.
This was Anthony Sadler's first trip outside the United States, and they had planned to travel to Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, France and Spain.
Spencer Stone, the serviceman who is stationed in the Azores, has been described as a practitioner of jujitsu, played American football, and a trained medical technician.
A friend on Lajes air base, Airman First Class Sean Murphy, said that he had been planning his European holiday since arriving at the base in March.
09.59
The 554 passengers on board the train included French actor Jean-Hugues Anglade of Betty Blue and Nikita fame, who criticised train staff on the train, alleging they entered a private cabin and locked themselves in when they heard gunfire, leaving the passengers alone. Thalys denies this.
The president of the French railway company, SNCF, Guillaume Pepy, has said he will meet Mr Anglade in coming days to discuss the matter. Robert Mendick has provided a timeline of the action:
"It was just after 5.50pm on the high- speed Amsterdam to Paris train that the slightly-built young man emerged from a lavatory between the two carriages. He was bare-chested and brandishing a Kalashnikov automatic rifle, some kind of knife and a handgun. Then he took aim."
09.31
French counter-terrorism police who confirmed through fingerprints their suspicions that El-Khazzani was the same man who had been brought to their attention in February 2014. French authorities said he had lived in the southern Spanish city of Algeciras, frequenting a mosque which is under surveillance there. He was transferred Saturday morning to anti-terror police headquarters outside Paris and can be held for up to 96 hours.
A French official close to the investigation said the French signal "sounded" on May 10 in Berlin, where El-Khazzani was flying to Turkey. The French transmitted this information to Spain, which advised on May 21 that he no longer lived there but in Belgium. The French then advised Belgium, according to the official close to the investigation, but it wasn't clear what, if any, action was taken after that.
09.25
Some more good news in the war on terror. British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond has announced that a British hostage has been released following United Arab Emirates military intelligence operation in Yemen.
The Briton, whose identity has not been revealed, is said to be "safe and well" and is "receiving support" from British government officials.
09.22
It has emerged that the station used by the gunman to launch his botched attack is close to a market notorious for illegal weapons trade, writes Matthew Holehouse.
El-Khazzani boarded the train he had chosen for the attempted massacre at Brussels Gare du Midi, yards from where the terrorists behind the Charlie Hebdo atrocity in Paris this year bought their arsenal.
09.10
French police were reportedly warned more than a year ago about the radical views of a gunman disarmed by US and British passengers on a train. It also claimed the 26-year-old Moroccan, believed to have visited Syria last year, had been included on a European anti-extremism police database as far back as 2012.
Officials told The Associated Press El-Khazzani, was on the radar of authorities in France, Belgium and Spain.
France has been on edge since the attack on the Charlie Hebdo magazine and a Jewish supermarket in Paris in January, which left 17 people dead.
08.30
The first picture of the gunman has been released.
The suspect in the attack on a high speed train travelling from Amsterdam to Paris has been identified as Ayoub El-Khazzani, a 26-year-old Moroccan national who was living in Spain until last year.
He emerged shirtless from a lavatory bearing an AK-47, a handgun, and a box-cutter knife. A French passenger then tried to tackle the gunman, resulting in several rounds being fired and one person being struck by a bullet.
Alek Skarlatos, an American solider recently returned from Afghanistan, then yelled "get him," at which point his friend Spencer Stone, a paramedic in the US Air Force, charged the gunman and was able to tackle him despite sustaining multiple injuries.
With the help of Anthony Sadler, a university student and friend was travelling with Skarlatos and Stone, and Chris Norman, a British businessman, they were able to pin the gunman down and tie his hands and feet.
The men have been hailed as heroes all over the world, including by French president Francois Hollande and US president Barack Obama.
"Had the traditional European reserve been in play it is likely that there would have been wholesale murder. As it was the strong tradition of US servicemen to be "always on duty", they no doubt saved lives."
A large percentage of readers reackoned thaey would have done the same:
05:45
Ayoub El-Khazzani, the 26-year-old alleged gunman, was well known to investigators in France, Belgium and Spain, the Associated Press reports. French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said Spanish authorities had alerted French intelligence about his membership in the "radical Islamist movement." He travelled to Syria within the past year, with unconfirmed reports saying he did so in order to join the Islamic State.
04:30
Our own Rob Crilly spoke to the mother of Spencer Stone, the Air Force member who charged the gunman and sustained injuries from a blade as he struggled with the attacker.
On Saturday morning, Airman 1st Class Spencer Stone was having surgery on his hands, wounded by a craft knife.
He told his mother his friend saved his life.
"He said he was OK when I finally got to speak to him. But he had a pretty bad injury that we are hoping there's no permanent damage," said Joyce Eskel from her home in Sacramento, California.
"We're just thankful that they managed to stop this man do what he was going to do."
"It is absolutely in his character," said Ms Eskel between sobs. "I have another son and they are both very courageous boys.
"It didn't surprise me at all. It makes me nervous at times, but I am thankful that he is that way."
02:55
Here's a quick recap of the chronology of the failed attack:
At 5:45pm local time on Friday a French passenger rose to use the toilet at the same time as a gunman with an AK-47 emerged, shirtless, into the corridor. The passenger attempted to stop the gunman, and during that altercation a series of gunshots were fired and one person was hit.
The gunman continued on into the next carriage, when Alek Skarlatos looked up and saw him. He turned to Spencer Stone, and said something along the lines of, "let's get him". Mr Stone charged the gunman from a distance of about 10 meters and tackled him, as the man slashed him with a box cutter.
Mr Skarlatos and Anthony Sadler were close behind, and with the help of Chris Norman, a Brit, they subdued the gunman and eventually tied him up.
02:00
The man who allegedly opened fire on a high speed train from Amsterdam to Paris has been identified as Ayoub El-Khazzani, a Moroccan national who lived in Spain until last year and reportedly travelled to Syria in the past year to fight with the Islamic State.
As he burst into a carriage shirtless and bearing a Kalashnikov, three young Americans and one British businessman rose to confront him.
Spencer Stone, a member of the US Air Force, charged at the gunman. He sustained knife wounds to his hand and neck but has now been released from the hospital.
Despite his injuries, he helped another passenger who had been shot. Witnesses credited him with saving the man's life.
His childhood friends and travel companions Alek Skarlatos, a soldier, and Anthony Sadler, a university student, helped wrestle the man to the ground. Chris Norman, a British businessman, helped the men tie up El-Khazzani.
President Barack Obama phoned the three Americans to thank them on behalf of the American people for their heroism.
00:56
Alek Skarlatos, the American Army reservist who led his two friends into action with a yell of "get him", had just returned from a tour of duty in Afghanistan reports Rob Crilly.
Alek Skarlatos must have thought the danger from Kalashnikov-wielding gunmen was behind him.
The young National Guard reservist wrapped up a tour of duty to Afghanistan in June and was in Europe to decompress for a month with friends, according to relatives.
He had spent 10 days in Germany before meeting up in Amsterdam with Spencer Stone, a friend from their shared childhood in California, earlier this week and boarding the train to France on Friday.
“I just got back from Afghanistan last month, and this was my vacation from Afghanistan,” said the 22-year-old in a matter-of-fact way after helping thwart an apparent terror attack.