Christina Cathleen Coons Christina Cathleen Coons

PASSENGERS OVERPOWERED A heavily-armed man who opened fire on a high-speed train travelling from Amsterdam to Paris.

The motives behind the attack were not immediately known, although a spokesman for the interior minister told AFP: “It is too early to speak of a terrorist link”.

A spokesman for the French state rail company SNCF said that the assailant was armed with guns and knives but gave no further details about the attack.

The spokesman had said earlier that three people were injured, two of them seriously, and that at least one suffered gunshot wounds.

An American and a Briton were reportedly among those injured. Reports say that the man was tackled by two off-duty US Marines and that the man is Moroccan.

The gunman was arrested after the train pulled into the station in the northern French town of Arras, the SNCF spokesman told AFP.

“The passengers are safe, the situation has been brought under control,” train operator Thalys said on Twitter. France remains on edge after Islamic extremists attacked the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket in Paris in January.

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In June, a man beheaded his boss and tried to blow up a gas plant in southern France in what prosecutors say was an attack inspired by the Islamic State group.

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