Good To Go

"I just looked over at Spencer and said, 'Let's go!' Spencer got to the guy first, grabbed the guy by the neck, and I grabbed the handgun, got the handgun away from the guy and threw it. Then I grabbed the AK (assault rifle), which was at his feet, and started muzzle thumping him in the head with it."
"[El-Khazzani] clearly had no firearms training whatsoever [but if he] even just got lucky and did the right thing he would have been able to operate through all eight of those magazines and we would've all been in trouble, and probably wouldn't be here today, along with a lot of other people."
"[Lesson no.1] Do something. Hiding or sitting back is not going to accomplish anything. And the gunman would've been successful if my friend Spencer had not got up. So I just want that lesson to be learned, going forward, in times of, like, terror like that, please do something. Don't just stand by and watch."
Oregon National Guardsman Alek Skarlatos, 22

"Norman said his first reaction was to hide. But after he saw the Americans fighting the attacker, he said he went to help them."
The Fiscal Times report

"The gunman pulls out a box cutter and slices Spencer a few times." [The attacker] never said a word."
Sacramento State University student Anthony Sadler, 23

"We just kind of acted. There wasn't much thinking going on. At least on my end. None at all."
"All three of us started punching him. [The gunman with an assault rifle strapped to his chest seemed prepared to fight but] so were we."
[Alex Skarlatos] just hit me on the shoulder sand said 'Let's go'."
U.S Airman Spencer Stone, 23

(Photo: Thomas Samson, AFP/Getty Images) Anthony Sadler, Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlatos and U.S. Ambassador to France Jane Hartley in Paris, August 23, 2015

"We are now faced with unpredictable terrorism. Terrorists henceforth will be choosing soft targets, those where there is little security. And that’s why he chose a train — because there is little security."
"[Because of the European Union’s borderless frontiers, there are no] systematic controls on Europeans [or those holding resident cards], only on foreigners. [And that is] the real problem."
Jean-Charles Brisard, French security consultant, terrorism expert

"Among the soft targets, the rail system will be a major one, because today they are so unprotected. For years their symbolic target was air transport, but that has become very difficult. [Trains are] an evident target. "
"Millions of people would say, ‘It could have been me'. The question was not whether, but when."
Bertrand Monnet, French terrorism and risk expert

"Access to the platforms over the whole network, to train stations, these are open spaces. It’s not like airports."

"Even if you are not traveling, you have access. It is a huge space, and one that is very difficult to make secure. You could put cameras in, but you can’t imagine a system like airports."
Marc Ivaldi, European transport expert, Institute of Industrial Economics, Toulouse

"You are dealing very much with a popular expectation that you can go to the station and get and go wherever it is you need to be quickly and without too much hassle. You can try screening everyone, but that is unlikely to be sustainable. You probably couldn’t keep the transport system working if you did that. Stations simply haven’t got the space to accommodate the queuing that would be required."                                                                                          Christopher Irwin, vice-chairman, European Passengers' Federation, Belgium 

The gunman who managed to enter the station fully loaded and to board a high-speed passenger train on its way from Amsterdam to Paris, galvanized three American service members from the National Guard and the Air Force, along with their civilian friend, into action. Now feted as heroes who managed to disarm the 26-year-old Moroccan, Ayoub El-Khazzani, before he was able to fully realize his perceived intentions, the incident has caused ripples of consternation throughout European capitals.

Questions have now arisen about train security. And how a man who had been identified by France, Spain and Belgium as someone with possible links to terrorism could have slipped past intelligence awareness and railroad security. The gunman had appeared as a security threat on a French watchlist. Spanish officials informed media that he had travelled to Syria, and the speculation was, for jihad. If he'd been in France their new surveillance law would have resulted in more being known and revealed about him.

As fortune had it, three Americans reacted instantly when it became apparent that a man with firearms was prepared to wreak havoc. And they were ably assisted by a British businessman who also reacted. On a train from Amsterdam to Paris, what could go wrong? A million people use that kind of public transport on a frequent basis, never suspecting that an Islamist from Morocco, a possible jihadist, would suddenly begin shooting at them.

Reaction was instant. Airman First Class Spencer Stone ran at the gunman to tackle him while the others, Oregon National guardsman 22-year-old Alek Skarlatos and 23-year-old Anthony Sadler, a Sacramento State University student, joined their friend to smother the intentions of 26-year-old Ayoub El-Khazzani. The lawyer now representing Mr. El-Khazzani claims that her client was homeless and hungry and meant only to rob a few passengers.

To attain that end he boarded in Brussels with an arsenal of weapons; a Luger pistol, assault rifle with loaded magazines and a box cutter. Weapons he claimed to have found, abandoned in a park nearby where he had slept, so he took possession of them. Mr Stone describing choking the gunman to unconsciousness, when the British businessman joined them to fully restrain the man.

A French-American teacher had been wounded with a gunshot, blood squirting from his neck. Stone responded to save his life and described his action, that he "just stuck two of my fingers in his [bullet] hole and found what I thought to be the artery, pushed down, and the bleeding stopped". And that is the ultimate description of cool thinking under extreme duress.

Mr Moogalian is stretchered away from the scene in Arras, France, after being shot in the neck, causing massive blood loss and nerve damage. His sister Julia said he feared he would die

"He is dumbfounded that his action is being characterized as terrorism", said El-Khazzanis lawyer, Sophie David. As to the interaction of national intelligence services informing one another when danger may present itself, the French transmitted information that El-Khazzani was en route to Turkey, then informed Belgium, and there the matter rested, with no one enlightened as to what, if anything was ultimately done.

Suspect: Ayoub El-Khazzani (above), 26, has denied accusations that he was trying to carry out a terrorist attack on Friday. He is being questioned by French counter-terrorism police after he allegedly opened fire on a high-speed train from Amsterdam to France

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