Stop on the Thalys train 9364

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Thalys train 9364 from Amsterdam to Paris in Bruxelles-Midi (June 2014)

On the evening of August 21, 2015, an attack occurred in the Belgian-French border area on the Thalys train 9364 from Amsterdam to Paris when the assassin Ayoub El Khazzani, who got on in Brussels , opened fire on other passengers . He was overwhelmed by several passengers.

Several people were injured, including the attacker.

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Map of Thalys connections at the time of the attack

The Moroccan assassin Ayoub El Kahzzani got on the train in Brussels . During the journey from Belgium to France, he looked for the on-board toilet in car 12 and loaded two weapons there: a Luger type self-loading pistol and a Kalashnikov assault rifle . When he left the train toilet at around 6 p.m., he fired at least one shot. Damien A., a 28-year-old French who wishes to remain anonymous, and Sorbonne professor Mark Moogalian , 51, were the first to oppose the attack. They had perceived the assassin as such before the shot was fired and tried to overpower him. Moogalian was hit in the throat.

Three passengers who were friends, the US Air Force soldier Spencer Stone and Aleksander Skarlatos , a member of the Oregon National Guard and the student Anthony Sadler , then pounced on the assassin and overwhelmed him. The assassin injured the US soldier Stone with a box knife on his thumb, neck and eyebrow. The three took the gun and assault rifle from the attacker and knocked him unconscious. Together with Chris Norman, a British businessman, they tied him up with a train attendant's tie. Norman was slightly injured while overpowering the attacker.

Then Stone, who was injured by the knife, took care of Moogalian, who was injured in the neck by the projectile and lost a lot of blood. A video recorded shortly after being overwhelmed shows, among other things, the tied up assassin with a naked torso lying on the floor of the compartment. Aleksander Skarlatos inspected the rest of the train to see whether another assassin was present. He took the attacker's Kalashnikov with him so that he could “kill” a possible second attacker. When he got back to car 12, he noticed that the gun was inoperative at the time because the bolt was stuck. The pistol was also not ready to fire because the magazine was either not inserted correctly or not at all.

The train was then diverted to Arras in France , where the injured were taken to hospital and the police arrested the alleged bomber. Later that evening, the passengers were taken to Paris.

Investigations

Initial investigations revealed that Ayoub El Kahzani is 26 years old and of Moroccan descent and is known to the secret service. He lived in Spain for a while and recently traveled. He is said to have been observed by the Spanish secret service. This information was also available to the French security authorities.

Ayoub El Kahzani announced through his lawyer on August 23 that he only wanted to rob the fellow travelers and that he was rejecting any suspicion of terrorism. He found the assault rifle and the nine magazines in a suitcase in the Brussels park where he usually spent the night.

The perpetrator was charged, among other things, with attempted murder and membership in a terrorist organization.

Reactions

US President Barack Obama praised that the passengers had prevented a far worse tragedy with their “heroic deeds”. NATO Commander in Chief Philip M. Breedlove was "extremely proud" of the military involved. French head of state François Hollande invited them to the Elysée Palace for the next few days , while the French media have already awarded them the honorary title of “Heroes of Thalys”. The French interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve described the incident as an act of terrorism. Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel also condemned the act as a "terrorist attack". On the evening of August 21, 2015, while Stone was still in the hospital, the other three rescuers, Skarlatos, Sadler and Norman, were presented with medals from the city by Mayor Frédéric Leturque in Arras. The next day, Stone was released from the Lesquin clinic . He had to operate on his thumb, which had been badly injured by the knife attack.

Chris Norman, Anthony Sadler, President Hollande, Spencer Stone and Alek Skarlatos after being awarded the Legion of Honor at the Elysee Palace on August 24, 2015

On August 24, 2015, the main actors in overcoming the assassin - the three Americans Skarlatos, Sadler and Stone and the British Norman - received the order of the Legion d'Honneur from the hands of President François Hollande .

The events were processed by director Clint Eastwood in the film 15:17 to Paris , which was released in 2018. Stone, Skarlatos and Sadler play themselves in it.

On January 31, 2019, the French Consul General in San Francisco, Emmanuel Lebrun-Damiens, granted French citizenship to the three US citizens Anthony Sadler, Alek Skarlatos and Spencer Stone in Sacramento. The US citizens had asked for French citizenship. Your naturalization was published in the French official gazette in September 2018.

Terror situation in France

In previous months, France had repeatedly been the target of terrorist attacks or plans with an Islamist background. In January 2015, three Islamists killed 17 people in attacks on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket in Paris . Since then, the highest terror warning level ( Plan Vigipirate ) has applied in the Paris region . In June 2015, a 35-year-old beheaded his superior in an alleged Islamist attack near Lyon and detonated gas cylinders in an industrial plant. In this case, too, there should have been connections to the IS militia in Syria.

A little more than a week after the Thalys incident, a number of EU interior and transport ministers decided in Paris to tighten the monitoring measures for cross-border European train traffic. [outdated]

After the terrorist attacks on November 13, 2015 in Paris, authorities suspect that the Islamist terrorist Abdelhamid Abaaoud was also behind the attack on Thalys train 9364. Abaaoud was killed in a police raid in Saint-Denis on November 18, 2015 .

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Statement regarding the incident of 21/08. In: Thalys website. August 22, 2015, accessed August 22, 2015 .
  2. ↑ US student tells of his attack on French train gunman (English)
  3. ↑ a b c France's interior minister calls attackers terrorists. In: Zeit Online . August 22, 2015. Retrieved August 22, 2015 .
  4. ↑ a b c France train shooting: Hollande thanks 'heroes' who foiled gunman , In: bbc.co.uk , accessed on August 22, 2015
  5. ↑ a b c Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung , 23 August 2015, front page
  6. ↑ Stephanie Dube Dwilson: Mark Moogalian & Damien A., Mystery Belgium Train Heroes: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know . 23rd August 2015.
  7. ↑ Train heroes: The men who helped avert a massacre in Europe. In: CNN online , August 22, 2015 (English)
  8. ↑ Attaque du Thalys: sans eux "nous serions tous morts" In: LeMonde online , 22 August 2015 (French)
  9. ^ A b c Attack in the Thalys express train: "That could have resulted in a bloodbath". In: Spiegel Online . August 22, 2015. Retrieved August 22, 2015 .
  10. ↑ Revealed: The mystery man who tackled AK-47 assault rifle from train gunman .
  11. ↑ Hero off-duty soldiers and British IT workers describe beating French train terrorist unconscious - LIVE . In: Telegraph.co.uk . 22nd August 2015.
  12. ↑ Blick: Americans prevent bloodbath on the train to Paris: This is how we stopped the terrorists! - look .
  13. ↑ «The train crew locked themselves in» .
  14. ↑ Exclusive cell phone video from inside train. In: CNN online , August 22, 2015 (English)
  15. ↑ “Grab him!”: Civil courage prevents bloodbath on the French train .
  16. ^ 'Wrong Place, Right People': US Servicemen, Passengers Speak Out after Foiling Possible Terror Attack on European Train .
  17. ↑ US citizens prevent bloodbath on the train. In: Tagesschau.de . August 22, 2015. Retrieved August 22, 2015 .
  18. ↑ France train attack: investigators focus on extremist motive , TheGuardian of 23 August 2015
  19. ↑ https://edition.cnn.com/2015/08/25/europe/france-train-attack/index.html
  20. ^ After the attack on the Thalys train: Belgium's Prime Minister calls for the Schengen Agreement to be revised .
  21. ↑ New terror shock in France. In: RP Online . August 21, 2015, accessed August 22, 2015 .
  22. ↑ Le courage des héros américains et britanniques du Thalys salué après l'attaque. In: francetvinfo.fr , 22 August 2015, (French)
  23. ^ Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger: Injured US soldier leaves clinic: Suspected Thalys bomber identified .
  24. ^ Hugh Schofield: France train shooting: 'Instinct' led US passengers to react. BBC News, August 24, 2015, accessed August 24, 2015 .
  25. ↑ Three Thalys heroes from the USA get French citizenship. In: nau.ch . February 1, 2019, accessed February 3, 2019 .
  26. ↑ vet / AFP / dpa: European ministers are planning more train controls. Railway station security. SPIEGEL ONLINE, August 29, 2015, archived from the original on August 29, 2015 ; accessed on August 29, 2015 : “Railway controls are a rarity across Europe - still. In the future, passengers and luggage will be checked on cross-border journeys and the names of the passengers will appear on train tickets. That is what the European interior ministers have decided. "
  27. ↑ Abdelhamid Abaaoud, l'instigateur présumé des attentats tué à Saint-Denis. In: Le Monde online , November 16, 2015 (French)

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