[ 2014-10-23 ]

Corporal Nathan Cirillo was fatally shot at the National War Memorial in Ottawa

Soldier shot dead in suspected terror attack at Canadian parliament
Canada came under terrorist attack yesterday when
a gunman stormed its heart of power, spraying
bullets around the parliamentary chamber shortly
after shooting dead a soldier guarding Ottawa’s
War Memorial.
Armed police and security officers chased at least
one gunman through the marble halls of parliament,
exchanging fire as they ran.
One assailant was eventually shot dead by the
Sergeant-at-Arms, Kevin Vickers, 57, a veteran of
the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Two people were
injured.
The fallen soldier, named as Corporal Nathan
Cirillo, 24, was given mouth-to-mouth
resuscitation by a woman while another man applied
pressure to his chest as he lay on the pavement.
He later died in hospital.
The gunman who was killed inside the parliament
building was identified by Canadian media as
Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, a 32-year-old Muslim
convert.
He was born in Canada and according to some
reports may have been of Algerian descent,
although he appears to have changed his name from
Michael Joseph Hall
Montreal court records show he had a criminal
record for possession of marijuana and had been
arrested five times since 2009, three times for
drug possession and twice for not respecting
parole conditions.
Craig Scott, an MP, said on Twitter “MPs and
Hill staff owe their lives” to Mr Vickers, who
he said shot the attacker just outside of the
MPs’ caucus rooms, where politicians had
barricaded themselves inside by stacking chairs
against the door.
Ottawa Police said they believed two or three
gunmen were involved in the attack, but several
hours after the shooting began it was still
unclear whether all the terrorists had been
accounted for. Stephen Harper, the Canadian prime
minister, was whisked away to safety to an
undisclosed location.
Sources told The Globe and Mail, a Canadian
newspaper, that the gunman had been designated as
a high-risk traveller by the government and that
his passport had been seized.
That follows the same pattern as the jihadist
convert who killed a soldier in Quebec by running
him over earlier this week. Martin Couture-Rouleau
was shot dead by police after running down two
soldiers, killing one, in the car park of a
military office in Quebec.
Last night Stephen Harper, the prime minister,
told the nation in a televised address that they
would not be cowled by the attavks.
He said: “Canada will never be intimidated. In
fact, this will lead us to strengthen our resolve
and redouble our efforts and those of national
security agencies to take all necessary steps to
identify and counter threats and keep Canada safe
here at home.
He added it would “lead us to... fight against
the terrorist organisations who brutalise those in
other countries with the hope of bringing their
savagery to our shores. They will have no safe
haven.”
He said the incident was a “grim reminder that
Canada is not immune to the types of terrorist
attacks we have seen elsewhere around the world.
“We are also reminded that attacks on our
security personnel and on our institutions of
governance are by their very nature, attacks on
our country, on our values, on our society, on us
Canadians as a free and democratic people who
embrace human dignity for all.”
The attacks come amid growing concerns that
disaffected young people in North America are
being drawn increasingly towards Islamists.
Yesterday it emerged that three teenage girls from
Colorado played truant from school, stole money
from their parents and set off for Syria in what
appears to be the latest case of young Americans
leaving home to join Islamic State.
Halted at Frankfurt airport in Germany, they were
detained and questioned by the FBI before being
escorted home to their families in a suburb of
Denver. Officials have said that the girls — two
sisters aged 17 and 15 and their 16-year-old
friend — were hoping to reach Syria via Turkey.
Witnesses said that yesterday’s attacks began at
the war memorial, where a soldier in in dress
uniform was shot four times in the back by a
masked gunman. The fallen soldier, who carried a
symbolically unloaded weapon as he stood guard,
was given mouth-to-mouth resuscitation by a woman
as another man applied pressure to his chest as he
lay stricken on the pavement. Officials said later
that the unnamed soldier had suffered
“catastrophic” injuries and died in hospital.
The first shots rang out at the war memorial in
Ottawa a little before ten in the morning and
echoed on the streets filling with workers. They
were heard in Canada’s parliament building,
where Liberal and Conservative politicians were
already in a meeting. The Centre Block building,
as it is known, is not far from the memorial and
was full of MPs and their staff.
It was a beautiful autumn morning, with a thin
gauze of cloud not quite blocking the blue sky
beyond. Two white-gloved soldiers were guarding
the memorial, built to commemorate Canadian troops
of the First World War and later embellished and
rededicated to those lost in later conflicts. In
2000, a Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was added, to
symbolise the sacrifice of all those who had died
in those conflicts, and in others yet to come.
There, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge had
greeted crowds of cheering Canadians during their
first royal tour.
Witnesses to yesterday’s attack said they had
seen a car pulling up on Wellington Street,
between the memorial and the parliament buildings;
a brown Toyota Corolla, without licence plates.
Some recalled seeing two men climb from the
vehicle, leaving the engine running. One was seen
walking towards the war memorial, carrying what
appeared to be a bundle of blankets.
He was said to have been about 5ft 10in tall, and
white, although one witness described him as
“South American” looking. He was also said to
be slightly overweight, and about 30 years old. A
witness named Raivo Nommik said the man was
wearing a hoodie, as well as a bandana tied around
his head. Another said he had a black-and-white
“Arabic scarf”. He approached the memorial and
the soldiers from behind — and opened fire.
Matthew Blais, a workman, told the Ottawa Citizen
that he “heard a bunch of pops and I looked over
at the war memorial and I saw a man with a rifle
shooting at innocent people”. After shooting one
of the soldiers, he is said to have shouted
something into the morning air.
Peter Henderscare, a reporter, heard the shots as
he was securing his bike on a nearby street
corner. He said two came in quick succession, then
another two. He ran to the scene and saw a soldier
lying in front of the memorial, with civilians and
military personnel rushing to his aid.
At least five people crouched over the dying man.
A woman administered mouth to mouth resuscitation;
two men bent over him at the bottom of the steps
to the memorial to perform chest compressions,
their workbags and the soldier’s rifle,
scattered around them.
Barry Willis, a construction worker, told
reporters that he saw the gunman coming from the
war memorial. As the man pointed a rifle at him,
Mr Willis dived into his van. “It scared the
s*** out of me,” he said.
He said the gunman had then commandeered a car and
driven to the gates of the main parliament
building, and rushed towards the entrance.
Mr Blais said the gunman had jumped “into a
green car and headed up the street. He parked
right in front of parliament and ran into the
building.”
Marc-Andre Viau, a spokesman for the New
Democratic party in Canada, was walking from the
front door of the Centre Block building when a
police officer shouted at him to take cover.
A reporter named Josh Wingrove, who works for The
Globe and Mail in Toronto, said he saw a man
rushing into the building, chased by police
officers who were shouting ‘Centre Block, Centre
Block!” A parliamentary librarian then saw a man
with a rifle walking through the corridors of
parliament.
Liberal MPs meeting in the basement heard the
sound of shots being fired. In one of the
building’s chambers, politicians pushed the
stately green leather chairs against the dark wood
doors to create an improvised barricade.
Mr Wingrove watched as armed police swept down the
grand hall, then rushed forward to the sound of
shots being fired. Soon, MPs reported that the
gunman had been killed.
The prime minister, Stephen Harper, was believed
to have been escorted to safety — but the crisis
was not over. While the centre of the city
remained in lockdown, Ottawa police confirmed that
there had been another shooting, at a nearby
shopping centre.

Source - The Times(UK)

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