Train gunman went from France to Syria: Spanish intelligence

A photo taken by a passenger with a smartphone through the window of a Thalys train shows police detaining a suspect on the platform at the main train station in Arras, northern France, on August 21, 2015, after an armed gunman on the train was overpowered by passengers. - AFP PHOTO/ COURTESY OF CHRISTINA CATHERINE COONS

MADRID, Aug 22, 2015 (AFP) - The suspected gunman who wounded two during an attack aboard an Amsterdam-Paris train travelled from France to Syria, a Spanish anti-terror source said on Saturday.

"He lived in (southern) Spain in Algeciras for a year, until 2014, then he decided to move to France," the source said. "Once in France he went to Syria, then returned to France."

French investigators were on Saturday questioning the suspect who was overpowered by a group of passengers, including two US servicemen.

Armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle, an automatic pistol, nine cartridge clips and a box-cutter, the man opened fire on board the high-speed train just after it crossed from Belgium into France on Friday evening.

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve has said the suspect was believed to be a 26-year-old Moroccan national.

He was "signalled by the Spanish authorities to French intelligence services due to his membership of the radical Islamist movement," Cazeneuve told reporters, saying he was living in Spain last year but had moved to Belgium in 2015.