Another Lone-Wolf Attack

Progress

A gunman with a Kalashnikov rifle and knives has been taken down and arrested by French authorities.  The high speed train was running from Amsterdam to Paris.

A gunman has shot and wounded three people on a high-speed train travelling from Amsterdam to Paris before being overpowered by passengers and arrested by police. The shooting happened at around 6pm as the Thalys train was travelling near Arras in northern France, the French state rail company SNCF said. French media said the gunman had shot a Kalashnikov on board the train, and was also armed with knives. The local paper La Voix du Nord reported that two US marines on the train had overpowered the man. The paper reported that the marines had intervened when the man was loading heavy ammunition in a toilet on the train. Both marines were reported to have been injured, one by gunfire, the other by a knife.[The Guardian]

The way this sort of thing normally plays out is that the authorities remain agnostic and non-committal on the reasons, motivation, and causes of the attack, particularly if there is just one person involved.

But a blow-by-blow account in The Telegraph appears to show that this mould has been broken--at least on this occasion:

19.20

A man has been arrested after firing a Kalashnikov rifle on board an Amsterdam-Paris train, according to French media.  Le Parisien reports that a Briton and an American are "seriously" wounded. . . .
La Voix du Nord, a newspaper in the Calais region, said a man was arrested on suspicion of firing the weapon on a Thalys train near the northern town of Arras. Police say that have not ruled out terrorism as a possible motive and Bernard Cazeneuve, the French interior minister, has been summoned to the region. The gunman, said to be of "North African origin," is said to have been "taken down" by a group of US marines onboard the train.

20.15

The suspect is a 26-year-old Moroccan, said Sliman Hamzi, an official with police union Alliance, said on French television i-Tele.

20.37

Le Monde reports that as well as the Kalashnikov, the 26-year-old suspect was also carrying a handgun and cartridges.

21.13

Bernard Cazeneuve, the French interior minister, paid tribute to the Marines as he arrived at the scene, and said
Thanks to them we have averted a drama.
(The Americans were) particularly courageous and showed extreme bravery in extremely difficult circumstances.

21.40

Belgian Prime Minister, Charles Michel, has said the shooting was a "terrorist attack":
"I condemn the terrorist attack on the Thalys (train) and express my sympathy for the victims," Michel wrote on Twitter
 

The Belgian Prime Minister has used the "T" word.  Now anyone prepared to take odds on whether the arrested Moroccan man is also Islamic, and that he turns out to be another lone-wolf assassin answering the call from ISIS?  At least we have moved beyond the agnostic, "we have no idea why this person was trying to kill people" to a public acknowledgement that it was a deliberate, planned attack designed to terrorise France, Holland, and Belgium. 

That's at least some progress.