OTTAWA, Ontario — Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has visited his country’s National War Memorial in Ottawa, where a soldier was killed yesterday by a gunman who then stormed the nearby Parliament.
Harper laid a wreath at the scene of the shooting.
He earlier called the shooting the country’s second terrorist attack in three days. On Monday, a man Harper said had been inspired by Islamic State militants ran over two soldiers in a parking lot in Quebec, killing one and injuring the other before being shot to death by police. Like the suspect in yesterday’s shooting in Ottawa, he was a recent convert to Islam.
The two attacks stunned Canadians and raised concerns their country was being targeted for reprisals for joining the U.S.-led air campaign against the extremist Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.
Investigators now say Michael Zehaf-Bibeau (zeh-HAHF’ bih-BOH’) was the only gunman involved in yesterday’s attack. Government officials say he was shot and killed by the Parliament’s sergeant-at-arms just outside the lawmakers’ caucus rooms.
Court records that appear to be the gunman’s show that he had a long rap sheet, with a string of convictions for assault, robbery, drug and weapons offenses, and other crimes.