Off-Duty US military take the fight to the terrorist

[kscarbel2]

Because of totally incompetent security by SNCF French Railways, a terrorist was able to board a Paris-bound train with a Kalashnikov, 9 full magazines of ammunition (almost 300 rounds) and a hand gun.

In a true act of heroism, two off-duty U.S. servicemen, Spencer Stone and Alek Skarlatos, members of the Air Force and Oregon National Guard respectively, subdued the terrorist and saved the lives of all the passengers on the train.

Spencer Stone suffered stab wounds from a knife and is in critical condition.

(Initial news reports stated the servicemen were two U.S. Marines)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3206426/U-S-Marines-armed-gunman-onboard-high-speed-train-Amsterdam-Paris.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3206504/Unarmed-Marine-critical-condition-Kalashnikov-wielding-suspected-terrorist-board-high-speed-train-Amsterdam-Paris.html

[rsb502]

Grrr!

[carlotpilot]

it would not surprise me if these two marines are somehow prosecuted or at least the attempt made at such

[41chevy]

The White House respects no one who in not illegal or a homee.

[Gmerrill0516]

We have to be grateful for men like that. They give so much for so little in return.

[fullfuel01]

they should have jump on his spine to make this s***er quadraplegic. This way you can think but no Wonder, you can't act! Can't fix stupid so break them.

[kscarbel2]

Humorous indeed.

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Morocco-born gunman Ayoub El Khazzani, 26, laughed at accusations that he was not trying to carry out a terror attack, and claimed that he had found the arsenal of weapons used by chance under a bush in a park.

‘He can’t understand why this affair has generated such publicity,’ his lawyer, Sophie David. ‘He says he only wanted to rob the passengers on the train and nothing else.

Security in the EU is a convoluted joke. Khazzani had already been on government officials' radars in four European countries before he carried out Friday evening's terror attack. He had been deemed a terrorist threat following the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris - and had fought with ISIS in Syria earlier this year. How Khazzani was able to move freely around Europe, despite being widely known as 'potentially dangerous'?

[kscarbel2]

The Financial Times / August 23, 2015

The ease with which the terror suspect in the failed train attack moved around Europe has put the spotlight on the passport-free Schengen Area.

Calls for tighter border security within Europe are expected to increase after it emerged that the gunman overpowered by passengers in France on Friday was known to anti-terror authorities in France, Belgium and Spain.

Charles Michel, Belgium’s prime minister, called for urgent talks with France, Germany and the Netherlands on increasing security on cross-border trains.

However [despite today's rampant terrorism situation], the European Commission said the Schengen treaty on freedom of movement was “non-negotiable” and there were no plans to change it. But it said increased security controls could be compatible with Schengen “if they do not have an effect equivalent to border checks”.

The train originated in the Netherlands, passing Belgium before entering France — three of the 26 Schengen countries where people travel without the need for passports and security checks (a terrorist's paradise). Passport and luggage checks are, however, carried out on Eurostar services that run to Britain, which is outside the Schengen Area.

French authorities said Ayoub el-Khazzani, 26, a Moroccan, had lived in the southern Spanish city of Algeciras, frequenting a mosque that had been under surveillance.

Mr el-Khazzani left Spain for France in 2014, travelled to Syria and then back to France, a Spanish counter-terrorism source said on Saturday. He had also lived in Belgium and may have had connections to a group involved in a suspected Islamist shooting in Belgium in January, Le Voix du Nord, a French newspaper, reported.

The suspect spent seven years living in Spain, where authorities were apparently aware of his extremist leanings and where he had been arrested repeatedly for drug trafficking.

According to reports in the Spanish press, his name was entered into the pan-European database of suspected Islamist radicals in 2012. Spanish antiterrorism officials passed on information about him to their French colleagues as soon as he left the country.

“When we became aware that he had left to live in France, we gave all the information to the country´s security authorities and made sure they knew he was a dangerous subject,” an unnamed Spanish official told the El Mundo daily. “France had him under control until [he] decided to leave for Syria. From then on, neither they nor we had any news about him.”

Mr el-Khazzani reportedly lived in Madrid and in Algeciras, a port hub for ferry traffic to Morocco. He arrived in the country in 2007 and left in 2014.

Spanish law enforcement told their French counterparts in March 2014 that Mr el-Khazzani had a “relationship with radical Islam”, the Spanish El País newspaper reported.

Mr el-Khazzani was tackled by three Americans and a Briton as he prepared to fire his AK-47 assault rifle on the Thalys high-speed train from Amsterdam to Paris via Brussels.

The train crew have been accused of barricading themselves in a staff room and abandoning passengers to their fate.

Jean-Hugues Anglade, a French actor who activated the train alarm, told the magazine Paris-Match that passengers thought they were going to die “because we were prisoners of this train”.

Train crew unlocked the staff room then shut themselves inside and ignored passengers banging on the door, calling for them to open up, he said.

“We heard passengers shouting in English, ‘He’s firing, he’s firing. He has a Kalashnikov’.” Mr Anglade said he saw train personnel running down the corridor to take refuge in their car.

“We were incredibly lucky to have American soldiers with us. I pay homage to their heroic courage and thank them. Without them, we all would be dead.”

Chris Norman, a British IT consultant, helped the Americans overpower the gunman and said he thought he was “probably going to die anyway”.

Mr Norman, 62, said he knew he was facing a terror attack “the moment that I stood up and saw a guy with an AK-47”. After giving evidence to police in Arras, France, he said: “My thought was ‘OK I am probably going to die anyway so let’s go. I would rather die being active, trying to get him down than simply sit in the corner and be shot.”

[Dirtymilkman]

Sounds like Europe needs tougher gun laws. Haha

[41chevy]

Sounds like Europe needs tougher gun laws. Haha

England banned most all guns so far as making antiques permanently inoperable. The solution was that criminals made Zip Guns using ball bearings and butane from cigarette lighters or propane as the propellant.

FYI Gibbs , the White House Mouth Piece called the Marines actions reckless (!)

[Joe Ditchkus]

Put another notch in the gun for the good guys (U.S.A.) and their Allies. Joe D.