UPDATE: 10/24/14, Montreal: The killer's Libyan father still lives with his Canadian mother though they're legally divorced: "By the summer of 2013, Zehaf-Bibeau had moved again. Back then, Montreal resident Bari Malki peaked out of his suburban home across the road from the one that he says Zehaf-Bibeau’s parents, although legally divorced in 1999, still share. Parked on the street was a dark-coloured Hummer. Scurrying around the luxury vehicle was a man with long dark hair, a white skullcap and wearing what he described as a typical Arab wardrobe. Malki learned the man’s identity only when he turned on the news Wednesday and saw the photograph of a gun-toting Zehaf-Bibeau. He recalled the booming voice of the shooter’s father, Bulgasem Zehaf, urging his son to stop cleaning the vehicle because it wasn’t even dirty."..."What propelled Michael Zehaf-Bibeau on path to radicalization," Toronto Star, A. Woods, D. Bruser
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"So shocking were the day’s events to the Canadian psyche that organizers canceled a National Hockey League game between the Ottawa Senators and the Toronto Maple Leafs."...The Oct. 22 killer's father is from Libya. The attack came "two days after a Canadian soldier died and a second was injured after being run down by a car driven by a suspected Islamic militant (30 mi. from Montreal) whom authorities said had been “radicalized.”"
10/22/14, "Attack Drags Canada Into Terror Era as Nation Reels," Bloomberg Business Week,
Terror invaded Canada this week when a “radicalized” convert to Islam on Monday ran down and killed a Canadian soldier with a car and a gunman yesterday invaded the nation’s capital. He murdered a soldier at a war memorial before entering Ottawa’s lightly-guarded parliament building with a rifle before being shot to death by a guard.
Canada had until now dodged a terror attack even as Prime Minister Stephen Harper and others had warned that the nation, whether from Islamist extremists or lone wolfs looking to settle some real or imaginary grudge, was vulnerable.
“It’s hard to see how this won’t change things,” said Andrew MacDougall, a former director of communications for Harper who’s now a consultant in London at MSLGroup. “To see my former place of work lit up in a blaze of gunfire is shocking, disheartening and worrying.”
Ottawa had reveled in its reputation as an orderly, quiet government town of about one million people where violent crime -- never mind gunplay -- is rare. Security here, as in much of Canada, is minimal at many public buildings. Until recently, most security guards at parliament were unarmed.
In Toronto’s financial district, home to the headquarters of Royal Bank of Canada, Bank of Montreal, and the local offices of dozens of foreign financial institutions, most office buildings have no barriers preventing passers-by from riding elevators to any floor they please.
The attacks are also likely to add fuel to a simmering, more than decade-long debate over the country’s participation in U.S.-led military operations in the Middle East that has divided political parties and public opinion. Harper authorized air strikes earlier this month against Islamic State militants for as long as six months, telling Parliament that group’s threat “is explicitly directed, in part, against this country.”
Canceled Game
“Canada will never be intimidated,” and will redouble efforts to combat terrorism, Harper said in a televised address to the nation last night. “We will learn more about the terrorist and any accomplices he may have had” in the days ahead, Harper said.
So shocking were the day’s events to the Canadian psyche that organizers canceled a National Hockey League game between the Ottawa Senators and the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The parliamentary incursion set off a rolling shootout with security and police that started in parliament’s foyer and ended with a gunman, wearing a blue and white headscarf, lying dead near the parliament library entrance. A mobile phone video captured the chaos as authorities, guns drawn, moved in on one of the invaders and opened fire, more than a dozen shots reverberating loudly in the stately arches of the building.
Caucus Meetings
Hundreds of parliamentarians were in the building at the time attending party caucus meetings. Pictures on social media showed some barricading doors with furniture to prevent assailants from entering. Ottawa’s business district was locked down for most of the day and police wearing balaclavas and carrying assault rifles swarmed the streets looking for perpetrators.
Authorities later in the day identified the dead man as Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, a Quebec resident. Two U.S. officials said that U.S. agencies have been advised that the shooter was a Canadian convert to Islam. At one point, police thought there could be one or two more gunmen and a hunt for others appeared to continue late into the night.
The shootings come two days after a Canadian soldier died and a second was injured after being run down by a car driven by a suspected Islamic militant whom authorities said had been “radicalized.”
The incident in Saint-Jean-Sur-Richelieu about 50 kilometers (30 miles) southeast of Montreal was linked to “terrorist ideology,” the government said. The driver, identified by police as 25-year-old Martin Couture-Rouleau, was killed by police after a car chase.
Confiscated Passport
Police in a press conference said Couture-Rouleau, who had converted to Islam, was being investigated by police due to comments he made on his Facebook page indicating he was becoming “radicalized.” Couture-Rouleau had been arrested in July as he was attempting to fly to Turkey, suspected of wanting to join militant Islamic fighters; he had his passport confiscated, police said. Authorities declined to say yet if the incidents are related. That attack, however, had put Canada on a higher terror alert.
Ottawa’s lock down was as shocking to many residents as the actual events. Throughout the city’s compact center, police warned office workers to stay away from windows and shouted at journalists to take cover. The U.S. embassy, located a few blocks from the war memorial, was locked down, as were the offices of civil servants in the area. The Bank of Canada canceled a scheduled press conference.
Four Shots
“I looked outside my window and saw the RCMP deploying about 30 cruisers,” said Karl Belanger, spokesman for the New Democratic Party leader Thomas Mulcair who was inside parliament when the shooting started.
The drama began shortly before 10 a.m. when witnesses heard as many four shots ring out near the National War Memorial at the end of Ottawa’s Elgin Street about 300 yards from parliament. A ceremonial guard fell to the ground, shot, while another soldier dove for cover in a flowerbed as bystanders fled in terror. The stricken soldier, identified as Cpl. Nathan Cirillo, later died of his wounds.
A few minutes later, other witnesses saw the gunman -- in his mid-40s with long, dark hair and a long, dark coat -- running from the war memorial toward Parliament Hill. Yan Legtenvorg, a tourist from The Netherlands, saw the shot soldier go down and the shooter “running away with a long rifle.”
Another witness, Raivo Nommik, said, “I was walking back. I heard the first shot and turned around and I thought at first it was just ceremonial. Then I just saw the guy with the rifle…I just ducked down behind the wall here.”
Car Hijack
Barry Willis, a maintenance worker, said the gunman entered the lawn area in front of Parliament Hill. The man pointed a gun at him before hijacking a black sedan used by cabinet ministers and driving it up to the main parliament building, according to Willis.
“I’m ex-military and I’ve never had a weapon pointed at me,” said Willis. “I’m shaking.”
Parliament at the time was filled with visitors taking tours of the building. Members of political parties had just begun caucus meetings, which take place every Wednesday morning when the legislature is sitting.
Parliamentary security scurried through the building telling people to lock their doors. About 30 police cruisers quickly drove up toward the entrance, where typically tourists would be taking photos of the Peace Tower that looms almost 100 meters above the building.
Police Pursuit
Marc-Andre Viau, of the New Democratic Party, said he saw the gunman enter the main entrance, with police in hot pursuit. Moments later, more than a dozen shots rang out inside the halls of the Centre Block building.
“I was completely terrorized,” said Alexandre Boulerice, a New Democrat Party lawmaker from Quebec who was in a caucus meeting when shots rang out. “I’ve never been so scared in my life. I heard a bunch of gunshots outside the door and there was no way to know how many shooters there were.”
By 10:15 a.m., Ottawa police begin cordoning off the downtown core. Buildings in the area were locked down, with employees forced to stay inside and told to keep away from windows. Police then set about evacuating all of Parliament Hill.
“Essentially when you look out the window it’s a ghost town,” said Kash Pashootan, a portfolio manager at First Avenue Advisory of Raymond James Ltd., reached by phone in the late morning. Pashootan, who works at the World Exchange Plaza on O’Connor Street, described the scene.
“Nobody’s walking, the roads are all closed. They’re barricaded,” he said.
Building Sweep
About 12:30 p.m., police, still worried about multiple shooters, began a sweep of the parliament building, breaking down doors of unoccupied offices in search for suspects. Finding no one, authorities began to lift the lockdowns by 3 p.m. though some areas were still being cordoned off late into the night. By 9 p.m., the lock down was over and parliament will resume today.
Ottawa Civic Hospital said that three people were being treated at the hospital for minor injuries related to the shootings. By 5 p.m., forensics team with bomb-sniffing dogs continued to work the war memorial. Bags and other materials from first responders who treated the stricken soldier still littered the ground as police cars blockaded streets leading to Parliament Hill.
Dangerous Times
In a speech last month unveiling his party’s legislative agenda for the current parliamentary session, Harper told Canadians they lived in “times of risk and danger” that require steady leadership.
The country has experienced occasional episodes of headline-grabbing violence. Each December Canadians wear white ribbons to commemorate the slaughter of 14 women at the Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal in 1989 by a lone gunman, and in 1984 a former army corporal killed three people in the Quebec’s provincial legislature before being persuaded to surrender.
Just over a decade earlier, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau briefly declared martial law in Quebec to stop a series of bombings by a nationalist group.
The Ottawa attack feels different, leading politicians to conclude the country has changed permanently. “It will impact on our dialog of how we live in this country,” Liberal Party Member of Parliament John McKay said of the violence in an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
“This is the kind of day that changes everything.”"
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10/22/14, Shots fired inside Canada Parliament
10/23/14, "Canada Parliament gunman had planned to travel to Syria: police," Reuters Canada, Randall Palmer, David Ljunggren and Leah Schnurr
"Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, 32, was a Canadian who may also have held Libyan citizenship, said Bob Paulson, commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP)....
Zehaf-Bibeau fatally shot a soldier at a national war memorial in the capital Ottawa on Wednesday before racing through the parliament building where he was shot dead near where Prime Minister Stephen Harper was meeting with lawmakers.
Born in Montreal to a father from Libya and a Canadian mother, Zehaf-Bibeau had gone on to live in Calgary and Vancouver, police said....The RCMP had only learned of the suspect's interest in traveling to Syria when it interviewed his mother on Wednesday, the commissioner said."...
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