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Shooting on high-speed train wounds two, Marine overpowers shooter  gallery  video
 
 
France's Interior Minister says the country's anti-terrorism prosecutor is investigating a shooting that left three people wounded on a train between Paris and Amsterdam, in which US citizens helped disarm the attacker.

A machine gun-toting attacker wounded three people on a high-speed train in France on Friday before being overpowered by passengers who included an American soldier.

Officials said the attacker was arrested after the shooting when the Amsterdam-to-Paris train stopped at Arras station in northern France.

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the French anti-terrorism prosecutor was investigating the incident and that the gunman's motives were not known.

French judicial police stand on the train platform near gun cartridges and a backpack in Arras, France. Shots were fired on a Thalys high-speed train between Amsterdam and Paris on Friday and several people were injured.
PASCAL ROSSIGNOL/REUTERS
French judicial police stand on the train platform near gun cartridges and a backpack in Arras, France. Shots were fired on a Thalys high-speed train between Amsterdam and Paris on Friday and several people were injured.

The wounded included the US citizen and French actor Jean-Hugues Anglade, Cazeneuve said.

Chris Norman, a 62-year-old British consultant, told reporters he had been sitting in the same carriage as the Americans when they heard a shot.

"I looked up and saw a guy carrying an AK-47 or at least I assume it was some kind of machine-gun," he said. "It could have been a real carnage, there's no question about that."



Anthony Sadler, from Pittsburg, California, Aleck Skarlatos from Roseburg, Oregon, and Chris Norman, a British man living in France helped to disarm an attacker on a train from Amsterdam to France. They're pictured at a restaurant in Arras, posing with medals they received for their bravery. Photo: REUTERS

Alek Skarlatos, a 22-year-old member of the US National Guard from Oregon, said his friend, who is also in the military, had been injured while he grappled with the gunman. They eventually got the attacker under control, Norman said.

"I just got back from Afghanistan last month, and this was my vacation from Afghanistan," Skarlatos said.

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Passenger Christina Cathleen Coons, of New York, described the drama in car 12 of the train in an interview with Ouest France newspaper.

"I heard shots, most likely two, and a guy collapsed," she is quoted as saying.

Coons, identified as a 28-year-old vacationing in Europe, said a window broke above one woman's head. "A guy fell to the floor and had blood everywhere," she is quoted as saying.

She described lying on the floor herself and taking photos with her phone.

"I thought there would be a shootout in the train," the newspaper quotes her as saying. Then, "people came to take care of him".

British media cited a Foreign Office official saying no British national had been injured, as had been previously reported by the French interior ministry.

France has been on high security alert since Islamist militants killed 17 people in and around Paris in January, among them staff of satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo and hostages held in a Jewish shop.

Commending the involvement of what he said were two US citizens, Cazeneuve said: "Without their courage, we would have surely faced a terrible tragedy."

A spokesman for the United States European Command confirmed that one of the passengers who had been injured was a US soldier, and said his life was not in danger.

Cazeneuve urged caution over the nature of the attack, which he said was a matter for the prosecutor to investigate.

"As always where an act that could be terrorist in nature is involved, the greatest care and the greatest precision will be used," he said.

A spokesman for French railway SNCF said on iTele television: "The man was armed with automatic weapons and blades. He was stopped by passengers." A statement from SNCF's European affiliate Thalys said the attacker got on its train in Brussels.

Police union official Slimane Hamzi said the 26-year-old man was armed with a kalashnikov and had said he was of Moroccan origin.

Since the January attacks in Paris there have been other incidents. In June, a suspected Islamist beheaded his boss and tried to blow up a US-owned industrial gas plant in the suburbs of Lyon.

And in July, French officials said they had prevented an attack on a senior French military official by arresting four people whose leader had links to jailed jihadists.

Thalys is partly owned by SNCF and Belgian railways and runs international trains joining France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. All four countries are part of the Schengen area through which people travel without the need for passports and security check-ins.

French President Francois Hollande said he had talked to Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel and that the two governments were cooperating in the investigation.

Michel said in a tweet, "I condemn the terrorist attack ... and express my sympathy for the victims."

The Belgian government is considering taking extra security measures, a spokesman said.

PHOTOS FROM THE SCENE:



French police stand over a man who is apprehended on the platform at the Arras train station after after shots were fired on the Amsterdam to Paris Thalys high-speed train. Photo: REUTERS

A man lies on the on floor in the Amsterdam to Paris Thalys high-speed train where shots were fired and several people were injured, according to the French interior ministry, in Arras, France, August 21, 2015. A man was arrested when the train stopped at Arras station in northern France but his motives were not yet known, a ministry spokesman said.  It is unclear if the man in the picture is the shooter. REUTERS/Christina Cathleen Coons/Handout via ReutersATTENTION EDITORS - THIS PICTURE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. IT IS DISTRIBUTED, EXACTLY AS RECEIVED BY REUTERS, AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS. REUTERS IS UNABLE TO INDEPENDENTLY VERIFY THE AUTHENTICITY, CONTENT, LOCATION OR DATE OF THIS IMAGE.  NO SALES. NO ARCHIVES. FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS. MANDATORY CREDIT.

A man lies on the on floor in the Amsterdam to Paris Thalys high-speed train. Three people were injured, two seriously, after a gunman opened fire.



French emergency services transport a victim of the shooting to hospital. Photo: REUTERS



French investigating police in protective clothing prepare to enter the Thalys high-speed train where shots were fired. Photo: REUTERS

 - Reuters