Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) — 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.
%@AP Links
028-v-36-(Warren Levinson, AP correspondent)--Canadian authorities are looking for answers after a gunman attacked the halls of Parliament. AP correspondent Warren Levinson reports. (23 Oct 2014)
<<CUT *028 (10/23/14)££ 00:36
042-a-12-(Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, in televised remarks Wednesday)-"Corporal. Nathan Cirillo"-Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper says a shooting attack in Ottawa has cost a soldier his life. COURTESY: CTV ((mandatory on-air credit)) ((refers to Wednesday as "today")) (23 Oct 2014)
<<CUT *042 (10/23/14)££ 00:12 "Corporal. Nathan Cirillo"
APPHOTO AJW212: Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his wife Laureen walk up to the perimeter of the National Memorial to lay flowers in Ottawa on Thursday, Oct. 23, 2014. Michael Zehaf Bibeau fatally shot reservist Cpl. Nathan Cirillo at the National War Memorial before setting his sights on Parliament Hill. Bibeau was killed just feet from where hundreds of MPs were meeting for their weekly caucus meetings. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Adrian Wyld) (23 Oct 2014)
<<APPHOTO AJW212 (10/23/14)££
APPHOTO SKP202: Kevin Vickers, sergeant-at-arms of the House of Commons, walks Thursday Oct. 23, 2014 past the library where Michael Zehaf Bibeau was gunned down the day before, in Ottawa, Ontario. Zehaf-Bibeau killed a soldier standing guard at Canada's war memorial Wednesday, then stormed Parliament in an attack that was stopped cold when he was shot to death by Vickers. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Sean Kilpatrick) (23 Oct 2014)
<<APPHOTO SKP202 (10/23/14)££
Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
