Canada parliament gunman identified

Canada’s police have identified the gunman who earlier went on a shooting rampage inside the country’s parliament building, saying the identified assailant intended to travel to Syria.

Police acknowledged late on Thursday that the shooter was solely involved in the Wednesday morning attack on Parliament Hill.

Michael (Joseph) Zehaf-Bibeau, 32, was identified as the shooter who slaughtered Canadian Army Cpl. Nathan Cirillo at the National War Memorial and then stormed the parliament building in Ottawa before being gunned down by capitol security.

Bob Paulson, the commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), said that the rampage was not linked to the killing of a soldier in Quebec earlier on Monday.

The RCMP found out about Zehaf-Bibeau’s intention to travel to Syria only when it quizzed his mother on Wednesday, the commissioner added.

Canadian media also said that Zehaf-Bibeau was a Canadian national who had been apprehended in 2004 in Montreal on a drug charge.

Meanwhile, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper pledged to redouble the country’s fight against terrorism. Harper said the recent attack would only strengthen Canada’s response to “terrorist organizations.”

Earlier this month, Canadian Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney said 80 citizens and immigrants who had recently returned to the country were suspected of planning “terrorist activity” on Canadian soil and were accused of collaborating with the ISIL Takfiri militants in Iraq and Syria.

His comments came a day after a vote by Canadian lawmakers to join the so-called US-led coalition against the ISIL Takfiri terrorists operating in Iraq and Syria.

Since September 23, the US and its allies have been conducting airstrikes against the ISIL inside Syria without any authorization from Damascus or a UN mandate. The airstrikes are an extension of the US-led aerial campaign against ISIL positions in Iraq.

AB/HJL/MHB