OTTAWA, Ontario—Canadian police say they have found no connection between the two attacks on soldiers this week.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police Commissioner Bob Paulson also says authorities had not been watching the gunman in advance of his deadly attack on a soldier at a war memorial in Ottawa on Wednesday.
Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, a 32-year-old petty criminal, then stormed the nearby Parliament building, where he was shot to death.
Paulson said on Thursday that Zehaf-Bibeau had recently applied for a passport, and authorities now believe he intended to go to Syria.
“The passport was part of his motivation. His application was not rejected. His passport was not revoked,” Paulson said.
“He was waiting to get it and there was an investigation going on to determine to see whether he would get a passport.”
Government leaders gathered in a show of resolution a day after a deadly attack on Canada’s Parliament, as authorities and everyday Canadians sifted through confounding shards of the gunman’s life seeking to understand what motivated the man to storm the nation’s seat of power.
The emerging portrait of Zehaf-Bibeau is a fragmented one: A misfit who went more than five years without seeing his mother. A crack cocaine user who once told a psychological evaluator he wanted to go to jail to beat his addiction.
A committed Muslim who said he wanted to become a better man, but, in recent weeks, seemed to come unglued. A homeless shelter resident who talked about wanting to go to Libya—or Syria—and became upset when he couldn’t get a passport.
A day after the 32-year-old Canadian launched what the prime minister called a terrorist attack, a top police official said on Thursday that Zehaf-Bibeau—whose father was from Libya—may have lashed out in frustration over delays in getting his passport.
“I think it was central to what was driving him,” Paulson said on Thursday. Bibeau shot a soldier to death at Canada’s national war memorial on Wednesday, then stormed the Parliament building, where he was gunned down by the sergeant-at-arms.
Police said he was armed with a lever-action Winchester rifle, an old-fashioned, relatively slow-firing weapon. The deadly attack was the second on Canadian soldiers in three days, forcing the country to confront the danger of radicalized citizens in its midst and exposing weak spots in security:
ν During the attack, Prime Minister Stephen Harper hid in a closet-like space within a Parliament caucus room. The Mounties, who are assigned to protect him, were on the other side of the room’s doors. The Mounties will now guard the prime minister around the clock, wherever he goes, Paulson said.
ν After the tragedy, all members of the Canadian military were ordered to avoid wearing their uniforms in public while doing such things as shopping or eating at restaurants.
ν Earlier this week the Mounties said about 90 people nationwide are suspected of planning to join with extremist fighters abroad or have returned from such activity.
But Paulson said on Thursday that Zehaf-Bibeau was not on that list and was not under surveillance, partly because it was not until after the shooting that authorities learned from his mother that he wanted to go Syria, where a host of militant groups, such as Islamic State are fighting.
ν Authorities are investigating how the gunman obtained the rifle, when he should been prohibited from possessing one because of his criminal record.
Zehaf-Bibeau’s passport, meanwhile, hadn’t been revoked or his application rejected, but authorities had been investigating whether to grant him one, Paulson said.
That obstacle appeared to weigh heavily on Zehalf-Bibeau, a petty criminal with a long rap sheet, including drug and weapons offenses, assault and robbery.
Abubakir Abdelkareem, who often visited the Ottawa Mission, a homeless shelter downtown where Zehaf-Bibeau stayed in recent weeks, said Zehaf-Bibeau told him he had had a drug problem but had been clean for three months and was trying to steer clear of temptation by going to Libya.
But, in the three days before the rampage, “His personality changed completely,” Abdelkareem said. He stopped being talkative and sociable and slept during the day, said Abdelkareem, who concluded Zehaf-Bibeau was back on drugs.
Image credits: AP/The Canadian Press, Sean Kilpatrick