Caitlin Quinn
A FORMER Spanish resident is in custody after attempting a terrorist attack aboard a train.
Moroccan national Ayoub el-Khazzani, 26, had a blade, a handgun, an AK-47 and enough ammunition to kill over 200 people when he boarded a train from Brussels to Paris on Friday afternoon (August 21).
Khazzani, who moved from Tetouan, Morocco, to Madrid in 2007, was reportedly radicalised in Spain and had been flagged by Spanish authorities as a terrorist threat.
Luckily, on Friday a potential bloodbath was averted when and Brit three Americans — two of them from the military — tackled the gunman.
They punched and choked Khazzani before tying him up until authorities arrived.
In the process, a French-American man was shot and several people suffered cuts to their hands, but all are expected to recover.
French president Francois Hollande praised the men who tackled Khazzani and awarded France’s highest honour, the Legion d’Honneur, to Americans Spencer Stone, 23; Anthony Sadler, 23; and Alek Skarlatos, 22, as well as British citizen Chris Norman, 62.
Khazzani had also lived in Algeciras, where his parents still live, and it is believed that he has trained with ISIS in the past year.
