Probably off the U.S. news radar, but Canada was already on a heightened state of alert after a declared jihadi sympathizer had attacked two uniformed members of the Canadian Forces in a parking lot of a strip mall in a town south of Montreal (near an army base). That guy was chased by police, forced off the road and shot to death while threatening the officers with a knife.
So this attack today is an apparent escalation by some unknown (as yet) number of jihad sympathizers and so far what is known is as follows:
— ceremonial guard (reservist) shot and apparently killed at the War Memorial
— one or more armed men burst into the lobby of the Parliament building (which is five minutes walk away from the initial shooting) and engaged in a gun battle with security guards. One terrorist was killed. If there were others, they fled the scene.
— whether the same terrorists or others, reports say that a car was hijacked and then some kind of attack was underway in a nearby shopping mall, the Rideau Centre. Details on that remain sketchy on live TV coverage at this point.
— at this point nobody seems to know how many armed jihadis are still on the loose, or whether they are attacking anyone or on the run.
Will post more as it unfolds. No innocents except for the reservist are confirmed dead at this point. All members of parliament are safe, despite the fact that many of them were in the vicinity of the gun battle that erupted (they were in their caucus rooms preparing for a session and the PM was about to leave for Toronto where he was to meet that Pakistani girl who recently won the Nobel Prize, she is in Canada to receive honorary citizenship and obviously that could be a factor in all of this).
Even before this act of terrorism, another terrorist act happened earlier in Canada.
ISIS’ Call For ‘Lone Wolf Attacks’ Hits Canada Where A Would-Be Jihadist Just Ran Down Two Soldiers
Independent Journal Review Justen Charters
Posted on 10/22/2014, 9:31:02 AM by george76
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3218199/posts
I had seen the interviews on television stating that Rouleau the convert to Islam, was previously counselled by police. Later he ran down two soldiers in Quebec as everyone knows.
It was stated the authorities had 90 suspected would be radical Islamists on their lists. The statement was made that the law does not allow arrests for one's wacky views. Rouleau was number 90. It will be interesting to find out if the Parliamentary terrorists are on that list. Still more interesting if drastic action will be taken against these remaining psychopathic individuals.