On 21 August 2015, a shooting and knife attack took place on a Thalys train on its way from Amsterdam to Paris. The perpetrator, 25-year-old Moroccan national Ayoub El Khazzani, was confronted by French, American, and British passengers who had noticed him carrying weapons onboard. El Khazzani injured two of the passengers with gunshots and knife slashes before he was subdued. A third person was injured while breaking the glass of an emergency alarm.
For their heroism, six of the intervening passengers received the Legion of Honour, France's highest decoration. El Khazzani initially claimed to be only a robber, but later confessed that he had wanted to "kill Americans" as revenge for bombings in Syria.
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